Category: Editorial (Page 17 of 34)

Champ of the Week: Nocturne Wrap Up

May 9, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Nocturne

Once again, I spent much of my Champ of the Week playtime early in the week, knocking out quite a few Nocturne games with very poor results. One of the problems with strong, popular champions, at least as it pertains to this feature, is that I can rarely get them in ranked. These champions will be banned often, which means reverting to normal games for testing. That’s not all bad, but if I can say one thing for ranked it’s that teams attempt to put together a decent comp at least 50 percent of the time. I can’t say the same for normal, which is why my early Nocturne games ended so poorly. Nocturne is definitely not the kind of champion that can just flat out carry anything. The bruisers are still too strong when played en masse, especially if Nocturne’s teammates are all as squishy as he is.

That said, it still happened. I still had a couple games with solid team composition and in those games I was dominant. I was particularly thrilled to have a game last night in which I was paired up with a Twisted Fate. Our combined ganking power was just too much for our opponents. Nocturne’s ult is a big part of what makes him strong. He doesn’t have to worry about positioning for teamfights. All he has to do is get within the general vicinity of a fight before ulting onto anyone in vision. I would often wait until fights were virtually over before heading in, making sure the enemy team had burned summoner spells and ultimates and cutting up low-hp targets.

That’s really where Nocturne excels; he absolutely trashes low health, low armor targets. He is slated to catch some nerfs tomorrow, but he will retain the damage steroid on Duskbringer, despite the nuke nerf. I’m not sure I need to say much more about the champion than what I’ve said in other posts – his kit is just too overwhelming for most champions to handle.

As for the one thing I would change, I think it would be his ultimate. It just needs to be changed, completely. The rest of his kit is strong enough on its own – he doesn’t need a global vision reduction along with a huge radius dash for positioning. Give him a weakness. Make the people playing him actually think about their positioning.

Champ of the Week, Editorial, league of legends

Champ of the Week nocturne nocturne build nocturne changes nocturne nerf nocturne op nocturne ult

Is LoL headed toward a Black King Bar?

May 5, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

With the rise of tanky DPS came another frustrating aspect of the metagame: chained crowd control. Many of the tanky characters in League of Legends are equipped with one or more CC abilities, be they slows, silences, knockups, snares, or stuns. I’ve played against many teams recently in which my deaths have felt like a one-shot, from 100 percent health to nothing without a chance to fire a single shot. That sort of stunlock mechanic is extremely frustrating in a MOBA, especially if you’ve chosen a champion with limited mobility (there are things from which even Flash can’t save you).

With the rise of tanky toons and the inherent rise of CC, I wonder if we won’t see some sort Black King Bar brought over from DotA. For those that don’t know, Black King Bar (BKB) was an item that granted the bearer magical immunity for a limited amount of time on activation. With BKB you couldn’t be stunned, slowed, feared – none of the CC options – but you also didn’t take any magic damage. Obviously this poses a balance problem for those one-and-done mages (Veigar comes to mind). With that type of item, we’d sort of be back to Flash breaking projectiles, which isn’t very fun.

Another option would be the introduction of some sort of diminishing returns on repeated CC on a target. Even giving Quicksilver Sash the Cleanse treatment – allowing it to reduce CC for for several seconds after use – would give players more options for dealing with the current metagame. Whatever the case, we need something to avoid the incredibly frustrating stunlock deaths.

Editorial, league of legends

bkb black king bar c&c crowd control magic immunity stuns tanky dps

Champ of the Week: Nocturne

May 4, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I realize it’s Wednesday, so this seems a little late, but I’ve been playing Nocturne a fair bit this week. Also, our discussion last week fueled me to make him this week’s Champ of the Week. To be fair the wraithy wonder, I haven’t spent many consecutive games with him. Unfortunately for the world that thinks Nocturne is balanced, that’s usually how I get proficient at champs, and I already feel like I can control games with him.

My basic design concerns are his rapid scaling, his ability to affect teamfights on a global scale (that ult is nasty even just as a blind), and the survivability offered by a short-cd spell shield.

I think it’s important to remember that balanced in the current meta does not necessarily mean balanced. I have played Nocturne against some very tanky teams and done poorly – it’s tough to be successful with any semi-soft champion against Malphite/Singed/Rumble +2. To me, balance in Nocturne’s case means when (if) the tanky meta gets a nerf, does he burn through squishy characters too quickly? Does he reach a godlike farm level too quickly? For now, I think the answer to both of those questions is yes.

Champions, Editorial, league of legends

Champ of the Week nocturne nocturne build nocturne champ of the week nocturne op nocturne skills

Champ of the Week: Karthus review

May 2, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I spent most of my time with Karthus early in the week since I had so much to test. He may not have been given a completely fair shake, but, well, I can always revisit him later if necessary. For now, here’s what I think about The Deathsinger.

Karthus is heavily reliant on immobile teamfights. He doesn’t do particularly well with chasing, largely because so much of his damage comes from the Defile toggle. Also, as teamfights get more mobile, his passive loses much of its effectiveness, existing to pretty much only get his ultimate off. His ult is definitely a pain as the game goes on, especially at higher ranks, so it’s extremely important that he stay ahead of the leveling curve as much as is possible.

I think I had the most fun building Karthus kinda tanky. I definitely missed having a massive ult, but with a Rod of Ages and a Rylais it was easy enough to soak some serious damage, all the while dishing back some pain with Defile. Add in an Hourglass and he can be really tough to hang around. His ult still hit surprisingly hard whenever I built him on the beefy side.

Playing Karthus was a strong reminder of why I hate global ults so much. His might be the best of them, if only because he doesn’t teleport with the ult, but it’s still too much unavoidable damage to be dealt across the entire map. If I could change one thing about Karthus it would be that his ult not be castable while his passive is up. It’s just silly that he can be 100% effective from death. I would even be fine with a 50 percent damage reduction while in his passive, but frankly, I think the best thing would be a rework of his ultimate in full.

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

karthus karthus build karthus changes karthus op karthus review karthus up

How does Nocturne remain unnerfed?

April 29, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Nocturne

I feel like this post is particularly appropriate following my Gangplank discussion because the two characters occupy relatively the same position on a team. Both are meant to eat up carries, it’s just that Nocturne actually has the tools to do that and Gangplank doesn’t.

I understand he isn’t seen a lot in ranked games right now, but that’s only because he’s getting banned. Every time I see him in a normal game I cringe, knowing that it’s just a matter of time before his farm is too much to handle. Often that’s somewhere around level nine, which is just too damn early. The big problem is his kit, which is utterly ludicrous compared to a lot of the characters out there. I know I’ve given the breakdown before, but it is just dumbfounding to me that he remains in the game as he was released. He still has a fear, a spell shield, an attack speed boost, an attack damage boost, a slow, a movespeed buff, a dot, two scaling physical nukes, a self heal, a global vision reduction, and a nearly global dash. All of that from four skills.

What..the…hell.