Part of the reason I like to game is that it makes me think critically about a situation in the face of a load of variables. With a game like LoL there are almost infinite combinations of heroes and matchups, and with the different build possibilities there is always a new strategy to consider. That said, LoL does have an active meta game, meaning the popular strategy/build method for victory is constantly changing because of new patches and new heroes.

Right now people generally think healing is the flavor of the month ticket to victory, but a couple people on the forums have laid out interesting counter arguments. One guy on the Test Realm said it’s not the healing so much as the kiting, which gives a team with a healer the ability to make the most of their healing power. An adjudicator also posted in the general discussion forums claiming that “poking” is the problem. Poking, as he puts it, is using a team’s ranged harassment abilities to wear down the opponent from a distance, forcing them away from towers and allowing your team to push. Characters like Ashe and Ezreal are great at this, though Ezreal is probably the best because his whole skill lineup is based on harassing the enemy team from afar while healing your own team.

Whatever you want to call it, the problem remains the same. Teams with healers are successful because they can stand out of the range of fire and heal the harassment that normally brings a target low enough for your team to initiate a fight. Add to it the fact that two of the best healers in the game, Ezreal and Janna, have the best ranged harassment in the game and you’ve created a situation that far too heavily favors any team that features those two toons.

The good news is that Zileas agrees that this is a problem and says that Riot’s focus in the next two patches will be addressing the ranged harass/healing combos that are so grossly overpowering other strats right now.

Since the launch of Twisted Treeline I’ve gone back and forth about playing on the map. For a while, I was in love with it. While people were still learning the faster playstyle, it was easy to pick up some quick wins. After a bad losing streak, I swore off TT, though it was hard for me pinpoint exactly why.

I’ve since gotten back into TT and been mostly successful, but it hasn’t been without frustration. I think I finally have a bead on the design behind TT that makes a loss there so much more frustrating than on Summoner’s Rift. The problem behind TT, or more appropriately, the design dilemma, is that the map has to encourage more fighting to produce a quicker game. It isn’t enough that the lanes are shorter, the towers less durable, and the gold generation quicker. The map has to produce confrontation, and the way Riot chose to do that was by heavily prioritizing the two major jungle creeps, Grez and the dragon.

This is actually why TT is so frustrating in comparison to Summoner’s Rift. On SR the buffs are definitely important, but the map is much larger, so sacrificing position in order to acquire buffs can mean the difference between defeat and victory. Teams that ignore buffs can still win the game if the opponent focuses too much on the buffs without thinking about positioning.

Twisted Treeline, on the other hand, is small enough that you can get the buffs without stepping out of position, especially since many of the stronger heroes on TT have ways to get over the walls. The big problem, then, is that players play TT just like they play SR – getting buffs when its convenient but not prioritizing them. This puts the team at a huge disadvantage, so big, in fact, that I’d say you don’t have a chance of winning if you lose those buffs three times in a row. The buffs not only increase your team damage output, they provide enough experience and gold to set your team way ahead, in both level and itemization.

The problem, at least in my mind, is that the importance of the buffs is discreet. Everyone knows that buffs are good, but most players don’t know how good. One way to fix this would be through some sort of spotlight on map basics. Another potential balance change would be to offer bonus gold for killing the wearer of the buff. It wouldn’t have to be the full amount, but something to help a team that either doesn’t know how important the buffs are or hasn’t been able to properly control the map catch back up. It would significantly slow the snowballing effect that is such a problem on TT.

Have you guys seen the same trouble on TT or is something else typically the cause for your loss?

There it is, all shiny looking. It’s not the milestone 1000th, but it’s fun to see each hundred go by. They’ve all been different, and my focus has been on completely different toons. For this one, I’ve made my rounds back to Shaco, and I’m finally getting back into his playstyle. And damn if that clown isn’t fun.

The only unfortunate thing is that the big 900 is that it’s sandwiched between a load of losses. In fact, I’ve only won two games out of my last ten, which is a rough way to go. The good in all of it, though, is that I’ve pulled some nice records despite the losses. It’s been a fun way to change my focus in the games – trying to perform well, even exceptionally well, in the face of defeat. At the very least it’s a great way to start to prepare for Season One.

For the data freaks, I have losses at 14-7 (Kat), 16-4 (Shaco), and 12-4 (Shaco). Oddly enough I have just two losses in which I had a negative K/D ratio, and in both games it was by just one death. I think I can live with that.

I’ve had another weird streak of losses recently, so I thought it would be good to cover one of the basic concepts that can have huge effect on the outcome of your games. Summoner spell selection can be the difference between a win and a loss, as perfectly illustrated in a Twisted Treeline game the other day.

On opening my team was two tanks and an Annie. I thought we’d be okay, because Annie can actually do quite well on Treeline with good backup. The problem was, she didn’t take Cleanse. With two tanks and Annie, who do you think the other team will pick first? If I remember correctly, our opponents included a Shen and a Warwick. Every fight went just like you’d imagine. Either Warwick would ult Annie or Shen would taunt and she would die, almost instantly. I even asked her at champion select to consider taking Cleanse, but she called me a noob and told me to “just watch.”

Next time you’re struggling for a win, take a look at your team comp and think about who the first target will be. If you’re running on TT, you should definitely take Cleanse. It’s incredibly rare to have a team without a stun, and you’d probably beat those teams anyway, so making the sacrifice for cleanse won’t seem so bad. On the flip side, take a look at the other team’s skills at the loading screen. Note the players with Cleanse or another escape skill like Flash/Ghost and try to focus the others.

I’ve never been great at moderation – when I get interested in something I tend to be completely absorbed, which is why I usually only give my time to a single game at a time. That also means I want to get the most out of whatever game I’m hooked on, if only because I don’t focus my time on any other titles. For LoL that’s meant developing a set of rules for my playtime to hopefully maximize my enjoyment. I’ve written about some of those rules here – avoiding TT when I don’t have a full premade, trying to choose the best team comp possible, playing toons with strong CC – but the rules don’t always work. I had my worst losing streak a few weeks ago and I’ve been struggling to bring up my ELO ever since. I took a week off to visit with my family, but having come back, I realized I had to try something new – I had to throw out all the rules.

So far, I haven’t seen huge success. I’ve still had the mix of good and bad players, both on Summoner’s Rift and Twisted Treeline, but I think I’m having more fun. I’m playing some toons I haven’t played in a while, including Shaco, who I used to be completely addicted to, and trying to play some new strats to pick up some wins. I had forgotten how much I love Twisted Treeline – the pace is just so much more enjoyable than SR – which was easy to do with that last losing streak.

Moral of the story is this, though. When the rules stop working, it’s time to get some new rules. I could beat my head against a wall all day trying to play the most OP toons in the most favorable situations but the bottom line is that there are too many variables outside my control for the variables within my control to make much of a difference. I know I’m a solid player, and as long as I’m playing smart every game and focusing on assisting my team and farming as heavily as possible, I’m sure I’ll be just fine.