Category: Patches (Page 5 of 23)

      Did the Flash nerf work?

      November 19, 2011 /

      The latest LoL patch included both a range and cooldown nerf to Flash, the game’s most popular Summoner Spell. As a result, I’ve been trying to rely on the skill less, choosing skills like Cleanse and Ghost to pair with my combat spell. It hasn’t been great. In fact, most of the time I’ve just wished that I was using Flash.

      It seems most of the pros agree. I watched a little bit of the MLG tournament today and saw 10 Flashes in several of their games. That’s right. Every player in the game took Flash. I can’t imagine Riot is too happy about the change, but it’s also difficult to imagine a Flash nerf that doesn’t completely remove the skill from viability. The big problem, at least as I see it, is that the strength of Flash is binary. It’s either a big enough jump to be useful or it isn’t. There is no middle ground.

      So much of LoL is about seizing the moment that Flash will always be strong or completely useless. Even if Flash had a cooldown of eight minutes, the threat of a Flash-stun would probably be enough to keep the skill in play. Positioning is just too important to the game.

      I will say this – making the other spells more appealing might be a decent way to compete with Flash. I’ve been using Cleanse a lot but I’ve been disappointed by the cooldown. I’m not saying Cleanse is the spell to fix Flash – I remember the days when every single carry took Cleanse and I don’t want it back – but reducing the cooldowns on and improving the effectiveness of the rest of the Summoner Spells could do a lot for Summoner Spell diversity.

      What have you seen? Has the nerf had any effect on how often you see Flash? Are players using any other skills in its place?

      league of legends, Patches

      Fizz Impressions

      November 19, 2011 /

      Fizz splash.

      Since the release of Skyrim I haven’t been playing a ton of LoL, but I’ve picked up a few games with Fizz. I was actually pretty excited about Fizz. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a silly champion release, and the classic sword-wielding heroes were getting stale. Also, he summons a shark, which is pretty awesome.

      He also has a couple abilities that seem problematic, though. A skill that makes him untargetable that is also a double dash. A percentage-based DoT that gives no indication to the targeted player of what is happening. But…there’s also the shark, which is just really cool. I think Riot had a good idea for a champion but caved a bit on his design with the whole triple dash thing. I’m not trying to say he’s OP but I do think he’s pretty strong and damn frustrating to play against.

      He’s fun to play, too, which helps. I know it’s not his most effective build, but I really like attack speed on him. I take a Malady, which gives his Seastone Trident some serious shredding power. I’ve had several fights in which my target thought they had me, but the knockup from my shark buddy and my various DoTs suddenly overwhelm them.

      One of Fizz’s great strengths is obviously his mobility. His Playful/Trickster (why this skill needed two names is beyond me) has an 8-second cooldown at max rank, which gives him a lot of survivability and quite a few dashes. That the skill can also dodge projectiles means he can escape most skirmishes without much trouble.

      If you want to play a highly mobile champion that doesn’t build Warmog’s/Atma’s, check out Fizz. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of his ratios tweaked in the near future, but if he gets nerfed at all, it likely won’t be very big.

      Champions, league of legends, Patches

      New masteries: the Defense tree

      November 16, 2011 /

      Ah, defense. The tree I used so little I hardly remembered it existed. I ran defense for a while with Kennen when he first released. I also used a 9-point defensive build on Jax and Singed, but other than that, I tried to avoid the tree as much as possible. It just didn’t have any pizzazz. Now, though, it’s a different story.

      The Defense tree got the most significant rework and will probably become the new favorite of Tanky DPS champs everywhere. The tree seems to be focused on staying power, which is perfect for that solo top lane. Bonus armor and MR, increased gold on kills and assists, CC reduction and health buffs – it’s a nasty, nasty tree. One of my biggest concerns is the 8-percent cooldown reduction near the top of the tree. Couple that with 4 percent more from Offense and champions can be much less reliant on gear to provide those significant benefits.

      Defense is also going to be a nice tree for several of the game’s junglers. The combination of survivability and extra damage from Blade Armor can make a dramatic difference in early game clearing speed. Defense is also now the place for improved Smite which grants 10 bonus gold on each use.

      I’ve already heard from a few of you asking about my current mastery builds. Honestly, I haven’t spent a lot of time on them just yet. I’m still getting used to the new system, so I’m slowly creating a few pages and trying them with some of my favorite champions. If you keep an eye on my page in the PvP.net client, you should be able to see some of he basic ideas I’m working with.

      I’m curious to see your builds, too! Drop your favorite new build in the comments and let me know how you’ve been speccing since the patch.

      league of legends, Patches

      New masteries: the Utility tree

      November 16, 2011 /

      The Utility tree was easily my most commonly used mastery tree prior to this patch. The skills were just too good to pass up. Extra cooldown on Flash, which I took on nearly every single character. Extra buff duration. Extra mana regen. More experience. Movespeed increase. Summoner Spell CD reduction. What more could you want? Well, how about something a little less AP centric and a little more focused on actual utility? That’s what we got with this patch.

      The new Utility tree is designed for support characters, scouts, and any champion that relies on a lot of cooldown reduction. I haven’t seen the occasion to go for the bonus gold masteries, but I rarely play support. You’ll notice the experience gain has been moved up several tiers. As a result, jungling has been granted more XP, which has given junglers some very quick clear times.

      Of the three new trees, Utility is probably the one I will use least. Don’t get me wrong, it has awesome skills, especially if you play support or a support jungler like Nunu. For those characters, I could honestly see dumping all 30 points into this tree. I know it’s a little strange, but the talents are so good. The one exception I might make is the 5 percent ward radius. I haven’t tried it in game, but 5 percent seems like a pretty weak boost.

      Support players, how have you liked the Utility tree? Check back soon for the Defense update.

      league of legends, Patches

      New masteries: the offense tree

      November 16, 2011 /

      The offense tree was never really one of my favorites. There were some decent skills in there, but I felt like I had a lot of wasted points for most of the AD champions in the game. There were also some weird AP talents scattered among the higher levels of the offense tree, points that I pretty much never used. With yesterday’s patch that has changed and changed significantly. The new offense tree is designed for anyone who wants to pump out huge damage, regardless of the damage type they deal.

      Each of the tiers of the Offense tree has options for both ability power and attack damage and the skills basically mirror one another. The 9-point talents grant penetration in the different damage types, which allows us to build 21 in another tree if necessary. Honestly, though, I think Offense will be my new tree of choice. The top talent grants some extra execute damage and there are little goodies along the way like extra damage to towers, bonus ability power, and extra crit damage. It’s an excellent tree for anyone who likes to blow up a target.

      As a couple of you have mentioned, the Offense tree is much better optimized for jungling, which could present a couple problems. With junglers getting faster thanks to better mastery options, they may spend more time working on turrets which, with the Demolitionist mastery, could mean towers go down even earlier in the game. As I’ve said before, that’s not really good for gameplay.

      Check back soon for the Defensive and Utility tree writeups.

      league of legends, Patches

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Fearless Gamer

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑