I titled this mid-week Olaf feature “Ragnarok” because it’s the skill that received his most significant buff in the last patch, but also because the change really didn’t do a whole lot for Olaf. I won’t lie, the Ragnarok change is nice, but realistically speaking, most Olaf players know when to ult and when to hold on to the skill. Now it basically serves as a way to soak a CC skill for teamfights or escapes.

Other than that, I really started to enjoy Olaf once I got out of the jungle. Olaf is a solid solo lane champion. He’s fairly durable, mostly because any respectable build involves some amount of health, he deals excellent damage with Reckless Swing, and 1v1 he is a pure terror, even for some ranged champions.

I will say this – Olaf does not get an exciting build. When I’ve taken him solo top this week, I’ve purchased two, sometimes three gold-per-5 items (Philo, HoG, Avarice). Those don’t make for massive damage increases, but they do allow for a huge late-game farm. During the early game I pretty much rely on Reckless Swing to carry me through.

I do wish Reckless Swing scaled into late game in some way. The true damage is amazing early on, but when I’m staring down a 3500 HP Jarvan, my 340 true damage looks pretty weak.

I’m an Olaf believer, provided he can get a solo lane. I’ve had a couple problematic matchups, but hopefully I can talk a little more about that in my final video. Check back this weekend for the wrapup!

I usually try to avoid champions that are overdue for remakes and tweaks, but Olaf just got a small buff so I thought it might be a good week for him. For the return of the Champ of the Week series I’ll be playing Olaf.

A long time ago I mused that Olaf might be an underwhelming version of Mundo. I don’t think that’s completely true, but I can still see the similarities and, consequently, Olaf’s shortcomings. Olaf is a champion I’ve never spent much time with, mostly because it takes so much farm for him to be enjoyable. Olaf’s basic kit is designed around having enough health to be missing 30-40% and still stay with a fight. That’s a lot of health, and it takes time to amass that kind of resilience, which is why I’m willing to state the following: Olaf shouldn’t jungle.

I know he can jungle. I know he’s an incredibly fast jungle. But he doesn’t make the kind of cash necessary to reach his potential if he jungles. His ganks aren’t strong enough to guarantee kill/assist gold, he doesn’t have the mobility, crowd control, or killing power to counter jungle effectively, and he requires too much farm to drop a lot of money on wards.

This isn’t just theorycraft, either. I played a couple games with Olaf today and, despite one successful match, I spent the rest of my game time wondering when I’d finally be farmed enough to keep up with my opponents. Answer: never. Without significant farm, Olaf doesn’t bring anything the table that another champion with similar qualities couldn’t do better.

I’ll be focusing on moving Olaf out of the jungle this week as much as possible. Where it seems to make sense I’ll also jungle with him to see if there’s anything worth saving, but for the most part I think my instincts are right on this one.

If you have suggestions drop them in the comments. Don’t forget to check back throughout the week for more Olaf impressions.

I’ve got some good news and some bad news regarding the Champ of the Week series. First, the good news. It’s coming back next week! I know I owe everyone a Talon video and a long overdue Veigar video, but that’s where the bad news comes in. All of the recordings I have from those games is buried somewhere on a corrupt and now very dead hard drive. I’ve since replaced that drive, but I lost my LoL Replay data along with all of my video footage from those games. Yes, it sucks very much.

Back to some good news, though – I should be able to get a game or two in over the next few days with both Talon and Veigar so I can at least upload a replay for those of you using LoL replays. If I have the time, I might even do a quick and dirty video, but that seems unlikely at the moment.

So, check back at the beginning of next week for the return of the champ of the week series. If you have suggestions for a character you’d like to see next week, let me know in the comments.

I thought it might be nice to give some mid-rotation thoughts on Talon while I’m working to gather footage for his wrapup video. I’m not sure if there are some high-ELO streamers playing him these days or if he just shines enough in Dominion to make him worth trying on Summoner’s Rift, but I’ve been seeing a lot of Talon lately. I’ve also been seeing him banned, and though I think there are better bans than Talon, I can understand why he’s on the list for some players.

Part of what makes Talon interesting is the way his ultimate works. He can use it to produce a lot of damage, but most of the Talon players I saw in the weeks after his release were using the skill to get out of a fight or run away before a fight even started. In my experience, though, it’s best to save his ult for when you’re already in the fight and the skill can hit both on its way out and on the way back in.

That’s a mechanic I didn’t really pick up on in the Champion Spotlight (even though Phreak said it) partly because the tooltip is a little unclear on just how the blades deal damage. Shadow Assault has the potential to deal damage twice: once when the blades expand and once when they collapse. In most cases, that means you want to ult while you’re standing right on top of someone. When the blade go out they hit and then even if your enemy flashes the blades will likely land on the return. It took me a while to figure that out, but now that I’ve got it I find it fairly easy to burst down a champion.

I’ll have more thoughts on Talon later in the week, including the wrapup video. Keep checking back and let me know if you have any questions.

I’m heading off to a wedding this weekend, so I won’t have enough time to do a proper Champ of the Week writeup in one week. Over the course of two weeks, though, it should be no problem. With that in mind, I’m happy to announce Talon as this (two) weeks’ Champ of the (two) Week(s).

When Talon first released I was unimpressed. He reminded me a little bit of Akali but without the sustainability. His cooldowns were too long to jump from target to target, he required a lot of damage items to really produce results, and he was painfully squishy. I’ve been spending a lot more time with him recently and I’m starting to come around on Talon. He relies pretty heavily on Doran’s Blade stacking for his early game, but after that he can affect the course of a game as well as a lot of champions. His ultimate can also be devastating to a team in the right circumstances.

So I’ll be playing Talon for the next two weeks, recording my thoughts and once again putting together a video about his skills. Check back for some more impressions this weekend or early next week. If you have specific questions or suggestions, let me know in the comments.

It’s long overdue, but the Trundle Champ of the Week wrapup is finally here! I went with a little more casual commentary style based on some feedback. Let me know if you prefer it to a more scripted style.

My first few games with Trundle went so amazingly well I couldn’t help but think the League’s only real troll might be a little overpowered. He’s incredibly quick in the jungle, has the tools for ganking early, has the damage output for sustaining into late game – where are the weaknesses? His one weakness is probably that he’s melee. Seriously. I think that’s his only weakness.

The flipside to all of that is that no one plays him. Like, no one. In the 50 or so games I’ve played and recorded, I’ve been the only person to play Trundle. I think this is mostly due to the fact that his skills are not exciting. You don’t take big chunks out of your opponents. You don’t get to stun people. If you miss your pillar by the slightest amount it continues to stand as a lasting monument to your failure. His ultimate is utterly boring.

Despite all that, he’s still powerful. In the video above I show a lot of different ways that Trundle contributes to the team. I think the most important thing you can do for a team as Trundle is to build tanky. Get an early GA and then follow up with some damage. The GA allows you to tower dive early and survive into late. It de-prioritizes you as a target in those early teamfights, which gives you the freedom to choose your targets carefully, make the best use of your ult, and rip through a team.

Skills and Items
When I play Trundle, I like to focus on beefing up defensive stats and debuffing enemies with Rabid Bite and his ultimate, Agony. I level Rabid Bite first, and then alternate between Pillar of Filth and Contaminate. Both skills provide great benefit with each level, so I just go back and forth, grabbing his ultimate at levels 6, 11, and 16.

For items, I get a Wriggles, Merc Treads or Berzerker’s Greaves (don’t forget, Contaminate gives him CC reduction), Guardian Angel, and Trinity Force. If the game goes beyond that point you can either get a Banshee’s for survivability or the damage item of your choosing. I would personally go for Infinity Edge, but if the enemy team doesn’t have much in the way of Exhaust or Ignite, go for a Bloodthirster. You will probably be the last man standing more often than not, and that Bloodthirster only adds to Trundle’s sustain.

If I Could Change One Thing
If I could change one thing about Trundle it would be his ultimate. The skill is definitely strong in its current form, but I would like to see it offer a little more punch. I think Riot could easily shift more damage to the front end, improve the animation a bit, and increase the cooldown. Yes, increase the cooldown. I know his ult is great for killing dragon and Baron and the occasional golem if you’re low on health, but it’s just too boring in its current form. I think we would see a lot more Trundle players if he was just a bit more exciting to play.

Don’t forget to Subscribe to the Fearless Gamer YouTube channel for notifications when my newest videos are up. I should have Veigar later this week but I am heading out of town for a wedding so I can’t promise anything.

With the release of Dominion and a backlog of videos for both Trundle and Veigar, I won’t be playing a Champ of the Week this week as I typically do on Summoner’s Rift.

In the interest of transparency, allow me to explain the Veigar/Trundle delay. Two weeks ago my hard drive started acting screwy. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but when I started to cut together the Veigar video, several of my clips became corrupted and wouldn’t work. After trying to recapture those clips, I realized the partition of my hard drive that housed my Fraps recordings was corrupt and needed wiped.

I now have a new hard drive up and running, a fresh Fraps install, but sadly, no clips. I’ve been using LoLReplay, which means going through quite a few games and capturing important moments without the benefit of a replay feature, which is time consuming.

The good news is that I should have time to work on both Veigar and Trundle tomorrow. I’m also planning a new feature specifically focused on Dominion, though I’m not totally sure where that one will fit.

Keep an eye on the YouTube channel for the newest videos as I have them. If you haven’t seen it, check out my Dominion commentary video for some tips and basic information on the latest game mode in League of Legends.

I really hate doing this, but I’ve had some technical issues that are going to delay the Veigar Champ of the Week wrapup by a day or two. To keep it short, I now need new hard drives in both my laptop and my desktop. Bummer.

In the meantime, I’ll give you a little teaser. For starters, I’m going to do my best to keep the video from looking like a highlight reel, but Veigar is prone to making highlight reels. It’s tough to keep the video from looking like it’s being skewed due to the nature of his combo. I did have some great teamfighting moments that I think will also highlight what he can do beyond just blowing up a target.

I had hoped it was just Fraps giving me trouble today, so I jumped into a game in the hopes of LoL Recorder providing at least a game upload for you to enjoy. No such luck. Again, the hard drive issues, but I also got stuck mid against a Kassadin. His new passive utterly wrecks Veigar through the early game, making it very difficult to lane against him. I think that’s more an issue of Kassadin’s design than it is Veigar’s. Kassadin can’t quite hang with the AoE casters like Annie and Brand, even with the increased damage absorption on his passive. Now he just pubstomps poor toons like Veigar harder than ever. If the game were draft mode, I probably wouldn’t have tried to play Veigar.

Keep an eye out later in the week for Veigar. Again, my apologies for the delays. As soon as my new hard drive is up and running I’ll be putting the video together. Promise.

After so many games as a solo in the mid lane, I think it’s time I get back to the place I’ve come to call home in so many of my games – the jungle. What better champion to play in the midst of normal draft mode than the champion that embodies so many LoL players these days: Trundle. This week I’ll be taking everyone’s favorite troll onto Summoner’s Rift to see where he stands.

Trundle is sort of a unique jungler in that his power level hasn’t changed much since release. In fact, I can only remember bug fixes for him – not even the slightest number tweak. Trundle is also widely underplayed, at least in my experience. Most serious players regard him as a threat, and I’ve seen him picked in several high profile tournaments. Still, he seems to be missing the special something that makes players really fall in love with a champion.

I’ll be focusing mostly on ways Riot could give Trundle a bit of magic – not damage, just some spark. His builds are pretty standard for a jungler, but I’m willing to get creative if you have any suggestions. I was going to test to see if builds like Warmog’s/Atma’s work on him but I already know the answer. Of course they do – Warmog’s/Atma’s works on just about anyone.

Check back later in the week for more impressions, and keep an eye out for the Veigar wrapup tomorrow.

I’ve been hesitant to pick Veigar as the Champ of the Week for a couple reasons. First, I love him. Love, love, love him, so I hate to use him and not have him later. Maybe I’ll just subject you all to more videos of him than could ever be necessary, regardless of this feature.

The other reason I hesitate is that Veigar reworks have been rumored for a while now, and I’d hate to do a video on him just to have him change shortly after. Then again, I see Veigar in one out of every 50 games or so, so he probably won’t be seeing changes any time soon.

Veigar holds sort of a unqiue position in the League. He’s the one champion with totally uncapped AP gain, similar to Sion’s uncapped health gain. Every time he kills a minion with his Q skill he picks up an extra AP and, once he has his ult, he gains another 1 for champion kills per level of Baleful Strike (max 5). Because of that, he can break 400 AP insanely fast.

The flipside is that his mana situation is pretty terrible, and understandably so. Make it too easy to farm and he becomes a one-shot wrecking ball by 15 minutes in. In some cases, that still happens, but more often than not, I find myself flitting around the outside of teamfights, trying to blow up an important target and provide the utility of his AoE stun. When played well, Veigar can be brutally effective in that role. He certainly doesn’t provide the team-killing power of an Annie or a Brand, but I usually find him much more rewarding to play than either of those two champions, and frankly most of the AP champions in the game.

This week I’ll be playing Veigar, focusing on his teamfighting skills and providing more utility than just the initial burst comp. I’m not going to be messing with jungle Veigar. I know it can be done, but it’s just not my thing.

Check back later in the week for more impressions of the tiny Master of Evil, and of course, the video wrapup at the end of the week. If you have any questions or suggestions, drop them in the comments.