Tag: Champ of the Week (Page 6 of 7)

      Champ of the Week: Nocturne Wrap Up

      May 9, 2011 /

      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

      May 4, 2011 /

      Frozen Nocturne.

      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: Karthus

      April 25, 2011 /

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      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

      Champ of the Week: If I could change one thing

      April 23, 2011 /

      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

      Cassiopeia frustrations

      April 22, 2011 /

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      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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