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Champ of the Week: Karthus

April 25, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

It’s Monday, which means it’s time for a new Champ of the Week. I was thinking about rolling with one of the remade champions from tomorrow’s patch, but I think I want to have a champion to play that won’t be getting picked quite as often as those champions are likely to. With that in mind, I’ve chosen Karthus as this week’s Champ of the Week.

Karthus currently holds a very strange position in the game – he’s one of few champions that can provide almost as much value dead as he can alive. In fact, I’ve seen some Karthus players use death as a viable carry strat. They allow themselves to be focused so that the teamfight happens on top of their dead body. Once dead, they cast like mad, dropping that humongous ult in the middle of five opponents. It can be seriously devastating.

I have a problem with the concept of global ults in general. So much of the game is knowing how to position yourself – when to run, when to fight, when it’s good to leave lane and help your teammates survive a gank. Global ults circumvent that knowledge requirement, allowing players to be more sloppy with their play.

With the advent of Deathcap, Karthus poses an even bigger threat. His ult has a pretty awesome AP ratio, which Deathcap obviously takes advantage of. Dealing 700-900 damage to an entire team before the fight starts can be catastrophic. If the teamfight then happens on top of Karthus, well, it’s probably game over.

I’ll be focusing on the ways Karthus affects the game, mostly at the early and middle game – I think we all know what he can do late game. I’ll also be taking a look at his best build. Is just rushing all out AP best for that big ult or is some sort of utility a better service to the team. At the very least, it’s going to take some time for me to get used to mouseover casting again.

Champ of the Week, league of legends, News

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Patch Preview shows off Alistar, Fiddlesticks, Gangplank reworks

April 24, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

The patch preview for next week is live, giving us a look at what’s in store for several of the game’s most neglected champions. Alistar, Fiddlesticks, and Gangplank are all due for reworks this week, all of which should be significant improvements on their respective playstyles.

If you follow Guinsoo on Twitter, you know the Alistar remake has been in the works for several months. A few times it even looked like it was patch ready and then got pulled. Basically the changes will give Alistar a lot more farming potential as well as a few more ways to use his skills that aren’t so Flash dependent. I’m really excited about this remake – Alistar was such a cornerstone of LoL at launch that it has been tough to see him slip into obscurity.

Fiddlesticks is basically having his damage normalized, which is exactly what he needs. His early healing has been nerfed a touch, but with an armor buff to keep his jungling strength. His Dark Wind bounces 5 times at all levels and now has scaling damage, which should improve his presence in both lane and coming from jungle, and Crowstorm has been rebalanced to account for the damage shift. Again, I’m really excited about the changes. I was a huge Fiddlesticks fan for a very long time. A little consistency will go a long way for him.

Lastly, there’s Gangplank. Plank has long been a problematic champion for Riot. He’s randomly bursty, has the only deny in the game (which is absolutely broken in some situations), and has a hugely unreliable ultimate. Pretty much all of that is being addressed with the patch, which I can only imagine will mean good things for the champion. He’ll be able to make better use of Raise Morale, his ult is much less of a guessing game, and his Parrrley shouldn’t be quite such a gamble. Again, excited to see this play out.

Champions, Development, league of legends, News, Patches

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Champ of the Week: If I could change one thing

April 23, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Desperado Cassiopeia

I played a game with Cassiopeia this afternoon during which a friend asked an interesting question: “If you could only change one thing, what would it be?” I liked the question so much I’m going to feature it in each Champ of the Week rotation in some way.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a great answer. My gut response is to say change the way Noxious Blast is cast. Honestly, I would rather have to click cast it than mouseover – at least then my cursor would be in the right position for me to land my other skills. It would also give us a visual indicator for the size of the blast, something that currently isn’t in the game, even if you click on the spell icon to cast it as is the case with Karthus.

Another option would be to make Miasma cast at a static size. I really don’t know why the spell grows. It’s a cool idea, but it’s so functionally clumsy as to be infuriating. The problem with both of my ideas is that it makes her combo a little too easy to land. Twin Fang would probably need some tweaks if either of those changes happened.

If I had to choose one and just one, it would be Noxious Blast.

Champ of the Week, Editorial, league of legends

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Cassiopeia frustrations

April 22, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Despite my misgivings about Cassiopeia, I’ve been having a lot of success with her. My deaths are usually higher than I’d like, but I’ve generally had a positive KDA and in some cases even carried my team. Until now.

As I start this post, I’m in the thick of what is almost surely a losing game, a game that has been laborious from the start, largely due to the way Cassiopeia casts. I laned mid against Karthus early, which was definitely a challenge, but one I was up to if he didn’t get blue buff at 6. Unfortunately he did, which meant I was slammed against my own turret all of the early game, woefully trying to time poisons against tower hits. My farm was pretty bad.

Karthus also had a much easier time with lane harass than I did. His casting mechanics are somewhat similar, but generally much more reliable. His slow AoE is huge while Cassiopeia’s is tiny. Hers grows, but the growth is slow and easy to see – not exactly difficult to avoid. There’s also the fact that Karthus can move his DoT spell by just moving his body. In one fight I hit him with my slow, a couple Twin Fangs, and a Noxious Blast to keep the poison up. It was looking like a kill until he hit me with his slow, which is much more devastating than my own, and then melted me with Defile and Lay Waste. It was close, but he got me and lived.

Cassiopeia’s ult is also extremely frustrating because of the facing requirement, especially against teams that kite. Karthus is a great example of a champion that will run away from you but turn back often to cast a single spell. If you catch him, great, but when he whole team is trying to keep you from him, but also kiting themselves, her ult can feel like a big waste. The slow isn’t really long enough to give you a shot at catching a distant target, and the damage isn’t spectacular either.

The more I play her, the more Cassiopeia seems to be designed around winning fights against champions that don’t know what she can do. She is very hard to 1v1 if you’re chasing her. Her ult plus an Ignite and any poison -> Twin Fang combo is pretty much GG. In most other situations, though, she’s easy enough to handle.

Champ of the Week, Editorial, league of legends

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Fiddlesticks remake in the works

April 21, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

fiddlesticks_splash_1

I used to be a huge Fiddlesticks fan, but lately he just hasn’t been doing it for me. He’s very susceptible to CC, he has a clumsy skill leveling path because Dark Wind is so bad at early ranks, and his damage can be wildly unreliable. With all that in mind, you can understand my excitement to see he’s getting a bit of a facelift.

From Morello:

Dark Wind: Bounces changed to 5 at all ranks. Silence duration 1.5 at all ranks. Leveling the skill increases base damage. Large increase to AP ratio.
Drain: Now heals for a % of damage as health. Begins at 50% and scales up with AP ratio (and can go over 100% with enough AP). Range slightly reduced. (Might increase CD if we have to).
Crowstorm: Base damage lowered, AP ratio increased.
Base Stats: Pretty sizable increase. His base armor was abysmal to make up for drain – with these fixes, he can have more normal base stats.

This sounds like essentially exactly what he needs. The Drain changes are a little strange, and mostly make sense so that he isn’t out of control in the lane (Dark Wind will be awesome now), but the rest of the changes are great. Dark Wind needed a big damage bump, especially with the number of tanky characters out there. It’s also good to see that Riot is trying to account for the Dark Wind damage increase by lowering the base on Crowstorm but increasing its scaling. Good stuff.

Champions, Development, league of legends, News

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