This patch was supposed to address some of the issues with Tanky DPS characters. There were health nerfs and shield nerfs, but from my perspective the game doesn’t seem much different. Tanky teams are still able to drag out what appear to be landslide wins.

Does tanky DPS still need a nerf? Sound off in the comments.

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Riot’s gone all out for Halloween this year, bringing us a boatload of new skins to celebrate the League of Legends equivalent to our spookiest holiday, The Harrowing. Just take a look at these skins compared to, say, the Olympic skins from earlier in the year. Remember Vancouver Amumu? Team Spirit Anivia? Now look at that Poppy skin and tell me you don’t want it. Even the Ryze skin looks badass.

All told, we have the following:
– Nosferatu Vladimir
– Lollipoppy
– Zombie Ryze
– Pumpkinhead Fiddlesticks
– Mundo Mundo

That’s in addition to the Sorceress and Spellthief Lux skins that will be in the store once the servers are up. I’m going to spend a lot of money today.

Corporate Mundo is indeed the legendary Mundo skin and it looks like he’ll be available for purchase on Monday, September 13th. Riot’s put together a teaser video, including Mundo’s new voiceovers in a silly montage with several other champions. Mundo’s new animation is that he throws a briefcase of loose papers instead of his infected cleaver.

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Within each recent patch cycle there have been skin releases that didn’t launch with the actual patch but became available at a later date. It looks like that trend will continue with some excellent looking skins for a few of my favorite damage dealers.

Master Yi, Shaco, and Mundo are all set to get some nice skins within our current patch cycle. The Yi is obviously an asian theme, but maybe someone can enlighten me on the specific reference (if there is one). Shaco’s getting a basic recolor. Mundo, though, is getting one of the coolest skins in the game. You may remember a thread a while back about Dr. Mundo and the various ways he ‘goes where he pleases.’ Remember Corporate Mundo? Running multinational corporation as he pleases? Yup, Corporate Mundo is on the way, and it looks like he’ll be throwing a cell phone from 1985.

No word on release date or RP cost for these, but you can bet I’ll be getting that Master Yi skin, probably once it goes on sale. It’s already my desktop background.

We’ve added a gallery function to the blog and are currently working out the kinks. Bear with me. It’s a much better way to display several images for a post, though.

I opened my Olaf Impressions post by stating that Olaf is strong, and potentially too strong and I think I’m willing to stand by that statement on one condition. When ghost is up, Olaf is strong. When ghost is down, he becomes a wet bag of meat for the other team to ingest.

When I first saw Olaf I thought he was kinda cool, sort of unique. I know it doesn’t take a genius to see the similarities between the viking and Mundo, but for whatever reason I overlooked their similar design (I think it was those pretty axes distracting me). Both toons have a skillshot slow. Both toons deal more damage as they lose health. Both toons have CC reduction (in Olaf’s case, immunity). The problem is, Olaf is only better than Mundo in one of those categories – the CC reduction – and it’s an ult versus a rank 1 regular skill. Mundo also has one thing that Olaf desperately needs – an active speed boost.

Olaf starts the game feeling extremely slow, and even by the time you get boots you probably aren’t going to catch anyone. His Undertow has a slow projectile speed and doesn’t slow nearly as much as Mundo’s cleaver. It also has a smaller hitbox. And while Olaf’s passive is admittedly awesome, it’s only awesome if someone is standing toe-to-toe with you, and generally the only people that will do that are the DPS that will rock you, regardless of your passive.

I realize this is why people recommend Frozen Mallet on Olaf – to force people to stay near you – but the prevalence of escape skills between just regular champion spells and summoner spells virtually guarantees that anyone who wants to get away from you will be able to do so.

Olaf’s ult can be nice, but without a means to close the gap, it’s still pretty worthless. I’ve had several games with him in which I would be running down an Ashe, my ghost would wear off and though I could ult, she was still ripping me apart until I got to her. By then you’re going to have some trouble against any truly farmed toon, even if you start at full HP. Mundo’s ult, on the other hand, gives you the speed and regen necessary to both close the gap and stay alive until you get there to pound some face.

Without a speed boost of some kind, Olaf feels horribly underpowered. If you see one at the loading screen without Ghost, get ready for an easy game.