Tag: olaf skills

      Champ of the Week: Ragnarok

      November 3, 2011 /

      olaf_splash_1

      I titled this mid-week Olaf feature “Ragnarok” because it’s the skill that received his most significant buff in the last patch, but also because the change really didn’t do a whole lot for Olaf. I won’t lie, the Ragnarok change is nice, but realistically speaking, most Olaf players know when to ult and when to hold on to the skill. Now it basically serves as a way to soak a CC skill for teamfights or escapes.

      Other than that, I really started to enjoy Olaf once I got out of the jungle. Olaf is a solid solo lane champion. He’s fairly durable, mostly because any respectable build involves some amount of health, he deals excellent damage with Reckless Swing, and 1v1 he is a pure terror, even for some ranged champions.

      I will say this – Olaf does not get an exciting build. When I’ve taken him solo top this week, I’ve purchased two, sometimes three gold-per-5 items (Philo, HoG, Avarice). Those don’t make for massive damage increases, but they do allow for a huge late-game farm. During the early game I pretty much rely on Reckless Swing to carry me through.

      I do wish Reckless Swing scaled into late game in some way. The true damage is amazing early on, but when I’m staring down a 3500 HP Jarvan, my 340 true damage looks pretty weak.

      I’m an Olaf believer, provided he can get a solo lane. I’ve had a couple problematic matchups, but hopefully I can talk a little more about that in my final video. Check back this weekend for the wrapup!

      Champ of the Week, league of legends

      LoL: Is Olaf just a bad Mundo?

      June 11, 2010 /

      Olaf-vs-MundoI 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.

      league of legends

      LoL: Olaf Impressions

      June 8, 2010 /

      Glacial Olaf.

      I was fortunate enough to catch a couple games with Olaf today so I wanted to share my impressions, as usual. Olaf is definitely a strong champion – potentially too strong, though I think his lack of a initiator/gap closer will be his weak point.

      For starters, Olaf is insanely strong in the early game. My first match with him I managed to bait a Kayle/Nasus combo down my lane a bit before creeps had spawned. They had me to about 60 percent when I turned and my lanemate (another Kayle) and I rocked them. Olaf’s attack speed gets so high he is just unmanageable if you have to be close to deal damage.

      Unfortunately, his passive is his one great strength. Yes, it is awesome, but I wish his other skills offered a bit more. Ghost is pretty much a necessity, because you just aren’t fast enough otherwise. If someone is toward the edge of your axe range, the distance they cover while you cast is enough that they’re out of range by the time your axe lands.

      Olaf is very strong in the jungle, which is good considering his ability to burn through mana. Most of his skills are cheap, but they’re up often so you can really churn through that blue bar. It’s also really nice to have lizard buff early in the game for the slow. That means you can rely less on your somewhat sporadic axe and more on your heavy-hitting Reckless Swing.

      The fact that Reckless Swing is pure damage is another strength. It deals what it deals, regardless of your enemy’s resistances. It can also hit you pretty hard in the early game, so be sure you’re going to live through the encounter before spamming this too hard.

      As for the rest, it feels a little early to talk about Olaf’s position as a part of the ongoing metagame. Patch Day always encourages odd choices, and I saw more Kayle players today than I care to remember. I also seemed to see Ashe in every game I played, which meant I was getting kited all over the map. If you’ve enjoyed heroes like Pantheon or Mundo, give Olaf and go and let me know what you think.

      league of legends

      LoL: Patch Day 06/08 – Olaf

      June 7, 2010 /

      Forsaken Olaf.

      What do you know – the day I write a post about the general lack of LoL-related news we get a patch announcement and a preview Champion Spotlight. There is much to cover so I’ll be making several posts to try to wrap everything up.

      Let’s start with the obvious: Olaf. The viking champion will be making his live debut some time tomorrow afternoon (for those of you on EST like me). He’s a tanky melee DPS champion, not entirely unlike…well, okay, he’s unlike most melee champions in the way his damage scales up with his health and the fact that his attack speed goes up as his health goes down. Overall, I think he will be a dangerous character to tangle with anywhere past level eight or so. For more on Olaf’s abilities check out my earlier post.

      Aside from the new champion, the most notable change is a big fat nerf to support healing toons. Nidalee finally caught a heal nerf that should significantly reduce her ability to play like a crazy fool in the early game and heal through it all. Her heal is down nearly 30 percent at all ranks, though it did get an ability power bump from .8 to 1.25. That sounds big, but it will mean a weaker early game and about the same mid to late for her, which is just what she needed.

      Ezreal caught a similar (and long overdue) nerf. The heal from his Essence Flux is now down to 50 percent of the damage dealt and has had the attack speed debuff reduced as well. Trueshot Barrage had its AP ratio down from 1.0 to 0.7, which should keep him more in line with other highly escapable champions.

      The rest of the champion changes are fairly minor barring the Kayle remake, which I’ll cover in another post. TF caught a bit of a nerf and Shen’s shield was indeed reverted to work like a regular shield, which is sure to bring a lot of tears from Shen players (honestly, those guys are starting to sound like Jax players to me).

      As for the rest of the game, there’s a new, ability power equivalent to the BF Sword called the Needlessly Large Rod. For 1600g you can get 80 AP. It’s a nice boost for those AP Kat players and frankly, it’s been a long time coming. Twisted Treeline got a few gold generation changes and some rework on the Lizard, but none of that stuff is really going to change the game too much.

      I’ll be covering the rest of the patch throughout the next couple days. Keep an eye out for the new skins. They are oh-so-sweet.

      league of legends, News

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