Category: league of legends (Page 28 of 163)

      Riven Patch Note Roundup

      September 15, 2011 /

      I haven’t done one of these in a couple weeks, mostly because the changes have been pretty lackluster. This week, though, Mordekaiser got nerfed, and it’s no secret that I loathe him like I loathe Seth Rogen, so let’s do a patch roundup, shall we?

      Brand caught a range nerf on his Conflagration and a slight damage nerf on his Pillar of Flame. I think he was undernerfed on both accounts. Both spells will still be insanely easy to land, and it doesn’t change the fact that both skills proc his insane passive.

      Garen caught a much-needed damage ratio nerf on his Decisive Strike and Judgement, as well as a damage-per-second nerf on Judgement. I’m not sure why he was buffed the way he was in the first place, but the forums seem to love him. I do love characters with high move speed, but I think we can all agree that Garen has had his day in the sun more than once. I was glad to see him knocked down a peg.

      As Gameguy astutely pointed out, Garen’s AD scaling got buffed on Judgement, and for some reason I read “reduced from 1.5 to 1.1” instead of “1.5 to 1.4” This is an undernerf, plain and simple. Decisive hits way too hard early in the game, and Garen has that annoying mix of skills that make him way too easy to play well. Movespeed buff plus a silence at the end so that characters with a dash or even Flash can’t get away from the Judgement damage – it’s too much, especially with the way his damage is right now.

      Kassadin got a pretty decent buff to his passive, which now soaks 15% of the magic damage he takes. He also got a damage buff to Nether Blade of all things. Will we see the rise of AD Kassadin as a result? No. No we won’t.

      Mordekaiser. Oh, Mordekaiser. I’m so happy you won’t be the default pick for top solos everywhere. I’m so glad I’ll be seeing less of you. I’m so glad your shield generation got pounded this patch. Okay, enough gloating. Honestly, I can’t say that I think this is the right fix for Morde. I think the bigger problem is the ult that turns fights into 6v4s and is insanely easy to get a ghost from. I think there are other ways to balance him then making him quite so bad in lane. With no CC, he’s really going to fall off for a lot of players now.

      Nidalee got some nice survivability buffs. I wouldn’t have minded waiting another patch or two on those, but since a certain top competitive player loves NIdalee, I suppose this was to be expected. I do think the stat change from dodge to resistances last patch is a very good one.

      Orianna got a slight adjustment to her attack range and the mana cost and cast range on Command: Attack. I’m not sure it will solve all her problems. She’s still insanely survivable from mid to late game and she has a monstrous ult. Now, though, at least we’ll only be getting smashed by the good Orianna’s. The rest will just barely be beating us.

      Rammus got some negligible adjustments and Shaco got some bug fixes. Shaco still needs quite a lot of help to be truly viable, but this is a step in the right direction.

      Shen got some buffs to some very odd aspects of his gameplay. He now has better AP ratios, which makes very little sense to me. He’s not Amumu. The energy change to his ult is quite nice (it’s now free) but it certainly won’t save Shen. Vorpal Blade just isn’t a good skill in a world of tanks like Singed, Alistar, and Amumu.

      Lastly, Sion got some tweaks that should make an AD build a bit easier for him. He also has a good bit more mana at level 1 and gains more mana per level, which should keep him in lane longer with more build varieties.

      I’m going to be covering the Taric changes in another post, so that’ll do it for the patch. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to get a Riven post together today. I haven’t had enough time with her to do a proper writeup. Hopefully tomorrow.

      league of legends, Patches

      Riot working on shrunken scoreboard fix

      September 15, 2011 /

      When Riot remade the in-game scoreboard it became enormous for a lot of players, covering up two-thirds of the screen or more. With the Riven patch we now have the opposite. For some players, particularly those playing at high resolutions and with reduced UI size, the scoreboard is tiny. Miniscule. Just look at the picture above.

      Riot has confirmed the issue and is looking into both a long and short-term fix. I know this isn’t exactly breaking news, but I’ve had quite a few people ask me about it over the last couple days so I thought I’d share.

      Check back later today for Riven impressions, a patch note roundup, and maybe even a little info about Minecraft 1.8 (if I’m not too busy playing it).

      Development, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: Veigar

      September 14, 2011 /

      veigar_splash_3

      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.

      Champ of the Week, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: Morgana Wrapup

      September 13, 2011 /

      With the beginning of another week comes the end of Morgana’s time in the limelight. I really enjoyed playing her for the Champ of the Week this week. She has great farm potential and a solid teamfighting kit. With the right team, she can be a real force on Summoner’s Rift.

      I’m going to let the video do most of the explaining. I had a lot of solid play with Morgana this week. Most of my mistakes were related to either using Black Shield a little too early or missing my Dark Binding. It’s frustrating to have so much of her damage tied to such a slow skillshot. If you miss that shot, her Tormented Soil leaves a bit to be desired.

      My Morgana Build

      I take one of two build paths for Morgana – Doran’s Ring stack to Deathcap rush or Rod of Ages to Deathcap. I think in most cases I was better served by the RoA. She farms so well early in the game that RoA is easy to come by and useful all game. The Catalyst procs also saved my ass more than once. From there I was going with Rylais, the occasional Will of the Ancients, and Void Staff if the enemy team was stacking magic resistance. I tried a tanky Deathcap -> Glacial Shroud -> Banshee’s Veil build, but it just didn’t bring enough damage as a mid AP carry.

      I also don’t take Zhonya’s. Unless my team has a Malphite or Amumu or even Wukong, I find it’s better to be able to move with whatever targets I’ve Soul Shackled that I consider to be important. That’s part of what makes her ult great – it deals initial damage and then allows Morgana to move toward the most important targets for a stun. You just have to hope your team follows along.

      If I Could Change One Thing
      I’d be wary to change much about Morgana, mostly because she can be so hard to stop in mid. I think even a small change could help her deal more reliable champion damage. I would like to see Tormented Soil get the Spirit Fire treatment – give it half of the duration damage up front, and let the rest of the ticks debuff magic resist and deal the rest of the damage. I know I picked off an Ezreal with Tormented Soil in the video, but having the extra burst would be really nice.

      That does it for this week’s Champ of the Week. I’m hoping things will get smoother as I continue with the videos. Subscribe to the channel on YouTube for updates as soon as the video goes live.

      Champ of the Week, league of legends, Video

      Riven Patch Delayed

      September 13, 2011 /

      I know this is going to come as a shock, but the Riven patch has been officially delayed by 24 hours. It remains unclear what caused the delay, whether or not this will affect the end of Season One (though I would bet it will), and whether or not there’s a plan in place if ELOs decay tomorrow.

      Here’s the official quote from RiotRara in a post made late Monday night/early Tuesday morning:

      Our release team has confirmed that an extra 24 hours is needed to ensure quality release. There will be no downtime tonight for the Riven patch. We are sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

      Needless to say the forums are displeased, as I think they have every right to be. This is incredibly late notice for what was supposed to be a substantial patch. Hopefully we’ll hear more from Riot tomorrow.

      league of legends, News

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