The latest patch notes from the PTR are a little disheartening. The biggest news I can see is that there are no Miss Fortune nerfs in the works. That’s right, none. She is not currently slated to receive any changes.

I’m hoping this gets changed. I can understand that there aren’t a lot of Miss Fortune players out there breaking games. As powerful as her abilities are, they’re also easy to overestimate, and if she gets behind, she won’t be much good. I think we’ll see something on the order of the old Nidalee though. I’ve had several games recently in which I was able to get MF as late as seventh pick. People have stopped playing her for some reason, which leaves room for devotees to hone their craft. It’s really just a matter of time before people realize how easily she can farm, how little time she spends out of lane because of that passive, and insanely good each and every one of her skills are.

You can read the latest TR patch notes on the Test Realm forums.

There you have it, folks. The proof (click the pic for a larger resolution). You’ll notice I have four kills, which is really high for the 13-minute mark, but I think I still could have hit this goal without too much trouble if I didn’t get those. Most required me to stop killing creeps, and in at least one instance, I left lane to get an assist, which was only 87 gold. I could easily have had that from the creeps I lost, if not more.

Also, you’ll notice I died. I was really excited that I might hit the 12-minute mark, so I overcommitted to try and help out our Yi (and hopefully pick Ashe off in the process). I was an easy kill.

I’ve written a decent amount about Miss Fortune’s incredible farm ability and the way she breaks the laning phase. She’s so strong I’d like to issue a challenge – see how fast you can farm up up an Infinity Edge and post your results in the comments. The game should be live – no bots, no practice – and try to include a screenshot if you can.

My current record is somewhere around the 14-minute mark. I had 4 kills and probably something like 90 creeps. At the end of the game, which was just 25 minutes long, I had 175 creeps and, as a result of my farm, 12 kills. As you can see in my screenshot (edit: screenshot was broken for some reason and won’t upload, I swear! I’ll try to get another), my timer was nearly 15 minutes, but I purchased my Infinity and my boots at the same time, and I was already running to lane. I’d say 14 minutes is a reasonable estimate. I should also point out, the game I’ve posted above gave me the idea for the challenge, it wasn’t a result of me trying. I just had a good farm and though, hey, I bet the guys at the blog would like this. My second attempt, I had Infinity somewhere just past 15 minutes and I didn’t have any champion kills (I even died twice). My own goal is to break the 12-minute barrier. We’ll see.

A couple tips for pretenders to the throne:
1 – With a good spec and runes, you don’t need to buy mana regen at level 1. Get two or three health pots and be on your way.

2 – Farm the wraith camp whenever your creeps push to tower. Your own creeps will be dying too fast to bring the enemy’s low enough to last hit

3 – Don’t rank up your boots, even if you aren’t trying to do this challenge. There’s really no need.

Good luck! Don’t forget to post your own results in the comments.

I’ve played a lot of Miss Fortune since the most recent patch, probably more than any new champion in recent memory. Her playstyle is much more enjoyable than many of the newer folks (I still just don’t get Galio) but as I mentioned in my impressions post, I think that’s because of her relative strength. After playing her some more, I realize her power actually makes her less fun.

The realization came after a game today in which I was racking up kill after kill after kill. I had been dominating the mid lane, but I wasn’t really having much fun. The reasoning is pretty simple – Miss Fortune isn’t difficult, in any way.

I prefer toons with a little bit of complexity to them. The fact that you can land Double Up without even trying for more damage than most skillshots ungeared is completely absurd. It’s also not fun. The joy of skillshot damage is landing that one hit on a guy that was about to get away. There’s also a lot of fun in dodging the hit that was about to kill you. For all the work Riot has done to reduce the RNG for toons like Gangplank, why introduce a toon whose baseline skill is an RNG for the second hit? Add to it the fact that Double Up forces you to either take damage from that big shot, or get harassed while she darts in and out of creep range from her passive. It’s not fun to play against and really, I don’t think it’s all that fun to play. I can almost hear the frustration of the other team.

I hope she gets some serious reworks. My best option is turning off her passive in combat. It’s good enough for getting across the map, it doesn’t need to so severely wreck the laning metagame, too.