Category: Champ of the Week (Page 11 of 13)

      Champ of the Week: Teemo

      May 24, 2011 /

      teemo_splash_4

      I was sad to get a late start on the Champ of the Week this week, but the weekend away was totally worth it. I drove late last night thinking of who I felt confident I could fully test over the course of a short week and kept coming back to the same answer: Teemo. Yes, I’ll be playing everyone’s favorite Yordle this week.

      I used to have nothing but loathing for Teemo. It took him forever to get a decent mushroom field going and his damage was fairly lackluster. Now, though, he’s got a pretty solid kit and he’s certainly capable of tying a team together. He also offers his team some crazy map control, which can be a lot of fun.

      Teemo does suffer if he has a lackluster early game which is made especially painful against teams that push through the laning phase early. Without a big farm, Teemo feels especially dull. His health is too low to survive the bursty teams and his damage doesn’t ramp up fast enough to cut down the tanks.

      That said, Teemo does have some nice early game damage and I think he has a pretty cool skillset for some counter jungling. I’m hoping some of my Nunu skills will carry over. Teemo definitely doesn’t have the creep control that Nunu does, but I could see him being powerful as a ganker against some of the slower, softer junglers.

      My first experiment with it did not go particularly well. I was having a terrible string of luck, not to mention my opponents had a very competent Karma running Clairvoyance, which made things all the more annoying. Hopefully I’ll have more to report in the next several days.

      Champ of the Week, league of legends, News

      Champ of the Week: Nunu wrapup

      May 20, 2011 /

      yeti_splash_1

      I know it’s only Friday, but I took some friends up on a last minute camping trip so I’ll be gone until Monday. I didn’t want to leave you high and dry on the Champ of the Week, though, and I certainly played enough games with Nunu this week to throw together a conclusive wrapup.

      My conclusions are essentially the same as they were a few days ago. Nunu is an absolute blast if you can stomach not being the guy with your name in lights. Not all the time, anyway. While most characters with Nunu’s brand of team buffing and enemy debuffing don’t have what it takes to blow up a target, Nunu’s ult offers him the chance to be the star here and there and that makes him feel even better.

      There is one important facet of Nunu’s gameplay that I haven’t talked about and that I rarely cover on the blog: peeling. Peeling is getting in the way of enemies who are trying to get to your team’s carry, just as you are trying to get at the enemy carry. Teams need to be able to do this or else the carry gets burned down and suddenly you’ve come up short on damage. Since Ice Blast has a 60 percent slow at max rank, Nunu is great at peeling. He also has the added benefit of a movement speed buff to throw on the carry, hopefully offering enough of a gap for escape. Nunu can also plant himself between the enemy team and the carry, waiting to use his ult until the enemy overcommits.

      In short, Nunu has all of the tools you could want from an allied jungler, so long as your team has enough damage in the lanes. Between your team buffs, your debuffs for your opponents, some very solid damage output and the extra dragon/Baron control offered by consume, Nunu can be the cornerstone of any competitive team.

      Champ of the Week, Champions, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: Undefeated with Nunu so far

      May 17, 2011 /

      yeti_splash_3

      After watching players from several top teams perform very well with Nunu, I knew he had the ability to make some game-changing plays. I wondered, though, if that power would translate to lower ELOs, where players tend to make their own mistakes instead of being forced into mistakes or out of their comfortable playstyle by another skilled opponent. From what I’ve seen so far, Nunu is just as powerful at my ELO as he is up top. I’m 3-0 since I started playing him this week, and two of those games have been absolute blowouts.

      I used to see fairly limited success with Nunu, but I think that’s mostly due to the fact that I wasn’t speccing him or using runes for tanking. I know, I know, it seems like that should be obvious, but hitting someone for a huge chunk of his health with that snowball is just so much fun. The tank build keeps Nunu from being a priority target because he can absorb so much damage. That means you can spend more time alive in the fight, slowing critical targets, buffing your carries, and saving that ultimate for just the right moment.

      Speaking of that ultimate, my god can it be fun. I used to think it was only possible to get a full channel if you had baited the enemy team into unexposed brush, but I had a game today in which I hit a full ult on a Shen, Pantheon, and Nocturne. That probably won’t happen often, but few things have felt better in this game than watching my channel bar fill up, the instant pop for a double kill at the end, followed by an Ice Blast for a triple kill. This was all immediately followed by a 4-0 surrender vote, which is just about as clear as it gets when I’m looking for an affirmation of my contribution.

      Despite that situation, kills aren’t really Nunu’s strong point. While he can definitely run down a half-health jungler in the woods, his skills are really best suited to forcing the enemy team to fight. Unless everyone has a Flash ready, the combination of Ice Blast, his speed buff on an ally with some sort of crowd control, and his ultimate make for tough getaways. With all that control, he also has the benefit of a very hefty ultimate, a spell that can do loads of damage if left unchecked.

      I think that’s what makes Nunu so much fun, and why I have such an easy time succeeding with him. Whatever it says about my personality, I love being the team’s hero. I like getting the kills, getting fed to the point that I can hard carry, melting the towers, and just generally seeing my name in lights. There’s just one problem with that mentality – the best spot for a skilled player on any team is usually in the tank/support department. Every team needs someone who can help set up the kills, cover a lane in a pinch, and worry about the big picture during teamfights while everyone else focuses on target priority. For me, Nunu brings all of those skills, with the added bonus that his ult hits like a bomb at every stage of the game. With just a little CC on your own team, Absolute Zero is remarkably easy to land, occasionally resulting in that double or triple kill that always keeps me coming back for more.

      Champ of the Week, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: Nunu

      May 16, 2011 /

      Nunu bot splash.

      Nunu currently holds one of the strangest positions in League of Legends. Very few players know how to play him well but the ones that do use him to devastating results. One of the top teams in the world, Team SoloMid, has a player named TheOddOne who is known for his Nunu play. I’ve always enjoyed Nunu, mostly for his simplicity. Also, when I have the chance to charge up that ult in some brush before anyone arrives, I just about jump out of my seat with glee.

      So this week I’ll be playing Nunu. My main goals are to learn to effectively counter jungle against a variety of opponents, to focus on a solid farm and assisting my carries with their kills, and to try to assess just how viable his ult really is. Check back later in the week for my impressions of the tankiest Yeti in town.

      Champ of the Week, Champions, league of legends

      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

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Fearless Gamer

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑