I would never expect a decent LoL article to come out of a radio station, but I suppose as games gain traction in the media we’ll start seeing some decent content everywhere. A Grand Rapids station put together a quick list of 10 old mechanics in League of Legends that were (mostly) broken. It’s an interesting look back at the game if you haven’t been playing for more than 6 months, especially since the post includes video.
I’ll say my favorite “remember when” from this list is the old brush system. Dear god. Riot was one brush-crazed company back in the day. That shit was everywhere. Innervating Locket was also an interesting item, though several strong characters made it ridiculously broken. I didn’t mind it terribly much on Gragas, mostly because AP Gragas is so much scarier than pure tank Gragas. Locket Udyr though? That was broken. Pair Udyr, Sona, and Gragas, get them all to buy Locket and you have one unstoppable push comp. As annoying as it was to see that comp played, I have to say, it added some flavor to the game.
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.
One of the primary things that prompted me to choose Morgana this week was how much trouble I had playing against her with Brand. I mean, it’s Brand. He’s an unstoppable force right now, but Morgana was still able to slam me up against my turret, which meant I had to focus on my farming and not on my harass. When the lane did push, I could never seem to stop her farm.
That experience remains basically the same on the other side of the coin. Morgana’s farm is seemingly impossible to stop, thanks to the damage on Tormented Soil. In mid, the lane is also small enough that my opponents have had to play very carefully to avoid slow attrition thanks to Tormented Soil ticks. I’ve also been able to withstand their attrition with the spell vamp from Morgana’s passive. It’s a nasty combo.
I think I played a game against a Malzahar earlier in the week, and he seemed to do okay. Like Morgana, his farm is nearly impossible to shut down, though Morgana can use Tormented Soil to keep him a bit low.
The only real problem I’ve had so far is landing Dark Binding. Some shots are no brainers, but it’s not a great skill for harassing when my target can see me. The particle is damn slow, which makes it damn easy to dodge. I actually remember commenting to a friend on Vent while playing against a Morgana that she couldn’t land a Dark Binding on me. Now I get it. I had forgotten how tight the hitbox is and how slowly the spell moves.
I was going to say that getting into a fight to cast Soul Shackles is a problem, but it’s so easy to farm that you should be durable enough to make this a non-issue. If you’re behind you’ll have to carefully consider when to jump in and drop the ult, but for the most part, I haven’t had any problems.
Check back this weekend for the Morgana Champ of the Week wrapup. I’ll be adding video to the post this week as well. In case you missed it, make sure you check out the Master Yi wrapup video on YouTube.
I know I haven’t yet posted the Master Yi wrapup, but that’s coming tomorrow in a new format. I didn’t want to delay the release of this week’s Champ of the Week any longer. This week I’ll be playing a champion that I’ve seen with increasing frequency over the past couple weeks, a champion that was in a surprising number of matches on my way to solo queue gold status. This week’s Champ of the Week is Morgana.
Morgana has had one of the most contentious careers in League of Legends. Anyone remember when Black Shield lasted for 8 seconds at max rank? When her Dark Binding seemed to hit the width of a lane? When Dark Binding dealt damage over time? What about the massive 3-second stun on her ultimate? Her power level has fluctuated quite a bit over the past two years, and though I didn’t see her for several months, I’m seeing her fairly often of late.
This week I’ll be playing the Fallen Angel, trying to see if I can’t make a little magic happen. I’ll say this for Morgana – she can farm as well as just about anyone in the game. I was ready to pull my hair out when playing against her as Brand. The player couldn’t land a Dark Binding to save his life, but the size and damage of Tormented Soil early in the game meant I was constantly up against my tower, desperately trying to last-hit minions. With such a massive farm, Morgana can be a devastating force in the early game, not to mention the power of a 5-second debuff shield as the game wears on.
If you have any up-to-date build advice or burning questions, drop them in the comments. As always, check back over the course of the week for my impressions of Morgana.
The Garen patch is finally upon us and with it comes a load of changes to both the client and the game system. On the whole, I think this will be one of the better patches for the game, even if Garen is a bit underwhelming.
For starters, we obviously need to cover the new champion, Garen. He’s going to run you 3150 IP or 585 RP so I hope you saved up. It’s a long, slow crawl to 3k for most people. His skill list remains essentially unchanged, which leaves him in a weird sort of melee DPS/hybrid role with very low utility. He’s still highly susceptible to hard CC (stuns/snares) but he does have a slow immunity, which will be nice for chasing. Unfortunately, chasing is usually a bad thing, unless you’re running cleanup after a teamfight, in which case its usually best to just push.
Healing got some massive nerfs this patch. Alistar now has greater self healing by 20 percent at all levels, but his allies will now only receive half the heal value. Ouch. Taric got cooldown and value buffs to his heal, but radiance no longer heals allies. Radiance also costs more mana for both startup and upkeep so you’ll probably have to break out that mana regen rune page if you still want to play him. Rally also got its ally heal removed, though the cooldown came down a full 90 seconds.
Katarina caught a big rework, giving her more base health and some survivability in the form of new Killer Instincts mechanics. The active Shunpo effect now reduces incoming damage by scaling percentage per level, giving her the durability to jump into a fight and ult when it’s actually useful instead of waiting until it’s over like she’s basically had to recently. Killer Instincts now adds a persistent damage buff and the damage ratio on her ultimate got a 10 percent buff. Overall, she should be decent now, though I doubt she’ll be great.
Morgana got some nice cooldown and mana efficiency buffs for her skills as well as the addition of a stacking MR debuff from Tormented Soil. Having played as her and also against her on the TR I can tell you she is truly horrifying. Just pray she doesn’t ever catch you alone.
Shen got reworked a bit, which will hopefully bring him out of the godlike tier on TT. The feint damage block will be excellent, but I think the cooldown increase, duration nerf, and nerf to damage blocked (now 180 at max rank) will be enough to keep him in line. AP Shen may be a bit more viable though. I’ll have to check on his AP ratios and relay what I can after some testing. Stand United also caught a nerf, bringing down the shield value, duration, and removing the refund if the ult is cancelled for some reason.
Other than that most of the changes were fairly small. Nunu got some buffs. Mordekaiser received some shield tweaks. Fiddlesticks got a long overdue nerf. Sion and Rammus got some small efficiency buffs. Tryndamere got a bit of a buff and Jax caught another small nerf (which still isn’t enough).
As for the game on the whole, there are two new items – one for tanks, one for physical damage dealers – and the assist system got a rework for debuffs on the target and buffs to the attacker. It should give support some much needed love. Matchmaking also received some changes to make things a little more smooth. Players should now be matched more appropriately by both level and ELO (it scares me that this wasn’t always the case) and full premades should be facing other premades more often (again, why wasn’t this happening or being discussed?).
Last but not least we got some skins. Garen gets the typical duo treatment, while we have yet another silly skin for Warwick (Grandma), a corresponding Annie skin (Red Riding Hood), and a skin for Sivir. I have to say, I hate Sivir – I think she is one of the most poorly designed toons in the entire game – but the Warrior Princess skin makes her look hotter (yeah, bangs are hot) and the extra armor makes her look kinda badass. If it didn’t cost 975 RP I would totally buy it and potentially right click my way to a huge winning streak with her.
