Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 68 of 260)

      Champ of the Week: Kog’Maw wrapup

      May 15, 2011 /

      kogmaw_splash_0

      I usually save this post for Monday (though depending on my workload it has occasionally been later than that), but I think I’m ready to wrap the week of Kog’Maw and look ahead to my next champion.

      Playing Kog’Maw this week served as a reminder of why I liked him so much at launch. He has a lot of flavor and a solid laning kit. He also scales well into late game but with enough weaknesses that he feels balanced. He performs well against a variety of champions, though I would suggest picking someone like Ashe or possibly Caitlyn if you’re up against a CC-heavy team comp.

      I tried a few different builds over the course of the week, most of which relied on Bloodrazor for maximum damage output. Bloodrazor is ultimately a good item for Kog, but I think he’s actually more fun if you run with a Wit’s End/Malady build early in the game. The cost is only marginally higher and I felt like I gained better defensive stats from the Wit’s End stacks than just the cloth armor in Madred’s. Also, the build was just more fun. When I run Bloodrazor I feel like I have to max W first, and I don’t think that’s always the best option. Running Void Ooze and Caustic Spittle gives Kog’Maw a lot of early burst, though it is a bit mana intensive. It’s great when you’re laned up against a squishy opponent.

      I think it’s tough to overstate the utility of Kog’Maw’s ultimate, too. If you’ve done a good job harassing your opponents you can shackle them to the lane by repeatedly breaking their recalls. I’m not usually one to break recalls but with Kog it feels like effort well spent.

      If I could change one thing about Kog’Maw, I think I would change his W from magic damage to true damage. I know that sounds a little nutty – I’m not much of an advocate for true damage in most cases, but a little magic resistance goes a long way against Kog’Maw. The percentages on his W aren’t as high as Vayne’s, and they might need to drop a bit since it’s an activated skill. I don’t really think Kog’Maw needs much, and that would probably be enough to push him over the edge.

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

      Don’t sell yourself short

      May 15, 2011 /

      Vayne.

      I hopped into a game this afternoon with one of the readers here, playing a Blitz/Vayne combo on bottom lane. I really thought we were going to dominate – we were up against Lee Sin and Janna, which on second thought I should not have underestimated as heavily as I did. Janna is such a strong lane partner and, frankly, Lee Sin does a hell of a lot of sustained damage with a support to back him up.

      Things didn’t go exactly as I had planned. I died early thanks to an Ignite/Exhaust combo and struggled to get my farm up for the rest of our lane phase. Around 15 minutes I checked the score; our team was up 14 to 5, but I was a whopping 4 of my team’s deaths. Ouch.

      My deaths didn’t tell the whole story, though. In fact, I was 4/4/4. It was more deaths than I would have liked to endure early, but I also had a nice kill count and the cash from four assists. I had been involved in 8 of my team’s 14 kills, which is a pretty nice contribution for early in the game.

      I’ve always maintained that stats don’t tell the whole picture. Sure, four deaths worth of gold was a lot to give up in the early game, but my dying usually allowed my team the opportunity to turn a couple kills, which resulted in much more gold for my own team than I was giving up. It was a frustrating early game for me but it resulted in a very solid performance for my team and a handy win. Always make sure you’re looking at the big picture in those frustrating lanes. If you’re playing smart, sometimes it’s okay to be the one soaking deaths for your team, even as a carry.

      Editorial, league of legends

      Recipe for a bad Vayne game

      May 15, 2011 /

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      I have been blowing people out of the water with Vayne since her release, pretty much without exception. I have lost a game here and there – I went 26/4 in a game and still lost with her thanks to absolutely rampant feeding by my four teammates but I still had fun trying to win that one – but I haven’t had a truly bad game until tonight, so I thought I’d share my recipe for losing games with Vayne.

      Ingredients:
      1 teammate (Gangplank or Nunu work best in my experience)
      1 open solo lane
      1 duo lane
      1-2 opponents, depending on taste

      Take your 1 teammate and knead until ready for feeding. If he requests a solo lane, knead some more. If he still requests a solo lane, give it to him. Watch that solo lane die to 1 opponent at level 1. Ask him to play more safely. Watch him die 3 more times. If working with the Twitch brand of opponent, prepare to never leave your turret. Surrender at 20 minutes.

      Alternatively, knead your teammate until ready for feeding and place him in a bottom lane for storage. When ready, join your teammate bottom lane and sift slowly with last hits. When he starts trying to zone two of the best laners in the game (Blitzcrank and Lux), gently persuade him to not do that so close to tower. When he dies four times in ten minutes, realize you will get zero farm in that lane, cook at 450 degrees for twenty minutes and hit the surrender button.

      league of legends

      How much LoL advertising do you see?

      May 14, 2011 /

      I was pretty surprised today when I stumbled across the above advertisement on a Minecraft blog. I spend a lot of my work day perusing gaming sites, which is why I was shocked that this was the first League of Legends advertisement I’ve seen (on a non-LoL related site).

      Online video game advertisement has always been a funny thing to me. Maybe it’s that I’m involved in the industry, or maybe I’m just old enough that I didn’t randomly happen upon games – I researched them and waited anxiously for their release – but I just can’t imagine those ads actually persuading me to try a game.

      I want to say that League of Legends is different because it’s free, but free game advertising is usually laughably bad. We’ve all seen ads for Evony online. They’re hilarious. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that those games may have ruined online advertising for the free-to-play model, at least for the immediate future.

      Then again, I don’t have millions of people playing the game I created.

      Editorial, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: Damn that Kog’maw is slow

      May 13, 2011 /

      kogmaw_splash_1

      This may have been a bad week to try Kog’Maw as my champ of the week. I’ve actually had some enjoyable games with him but I’ve also been playing Vayne and, as far as anti-tanks go, she obviously has the upper hand. Let’s be honest, though, she’s more of an anti-anything-that-moves than she is anti-tank. Still, I’m forging ahead with the Kog’Maw testing so here are a few thoughts.

      I had forgotten just how damn slow Kog’Maw feels. I’m playing with the amazing Monarch Kog’Maw skin, which may contribute to the slow feeling in part. When he’s hopping around flapping his wings he certainly doesn’t feel very fast, but in teamfights I always feel like it takes me longer to get any place than I would like.

      The most common Kog’Maw build also lacks the burst that many other ranged carries build for. Since most of his damage is percentage based, he doesn’t feel much different from the point that you finish Madred’s Bloodrazor until the end of the game. It’s a unique mechanic, unlike any other champion currently in the game. It also translates strangely into his gameplay.

      In my most successful Kog’Maw matches I regularly have a few fights in which I start out at half health and, at a time I would normally run on other ranged carries, I turn and fight whoever is in my face and often win that fight. The percentage based damage gives him the ability to do this fairly early in the game and continue to do it through the game’s duration. With other ranged carries I simply wouldn’t do that until I have a monster farm, if for no other reason than that so much of your damage comes from critical strikes. With Kog’Maw, though, it is usually a finite and unwavering number of attacks that will kill an individual target, affected only by the target’s purchase of magic resistance or your own build changes. In some ways that makes Kog’Maw very enjoyable to play, but it can be frustrating to think that just one simple crit could have meant a kill on a retreating carry.

      My biggest problem with Kog’Maw right now is how much damage high magic resistance targets can absorb. Malady is really his only option for addressing that problem, and it doesn’t reduce MR by very much. The rest of the magic penetration items are AP based, which feels like a waste of money. You could get Sorcerer’s Boots, but Cloak and Dagger isn’t really designed for a champion like Kog’Maw. I’m going to have to try a few games with Cleanse to see if that would be enough.

      Champ of the Week, Current Affairs, league of legends

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