Tag: trundle skills (Page 1 of 2)

Champ of the Week: Trundle Wrapup

October 4, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

It’s long overdue, but the Trundle Champ of the Week wrapup is finally here! I went with a little more casual commentary style based on some feedback. Let me know if you prefer it to a more scripted style.

My first few games with Trundle went so amazingly well I couldn’t help but think the League’s only real troll might be a little overpowered. He’s incredibly quick in the jungle, has the tools for ganking early, has the damage output for sustaining into late game – where are the weaknesses? His one weakness is probably that he’s melee. Seriously. I think that’s his only weakness.

The flipside to all of that is that no one plays him. Like, no one. In the 50 or so games I’ve played and recorded, I’ve been the only person to play Trundle. I think this is mostly due to the fact that his skills are not exciting. You don’t take big chunks out of your opponents. You don’t get to stun people. If you miss your pillar by the slightest amount it continues to stand as a lasting monument to your failure. His ultimate is utterly boring.

Despite all that, he’s still powerful. In the video above I show a lot of different ways that Trundle contributes to the team. I think the most important thing you can do for a team as Trundle is to build tanky. Get an early GA and then follow up with some damage. The GA allows you to tower dive early and survive into late. It de-prioritizes you as a target in those early teamfights, which gives you the freedom to choose your targets carefully, make the best use of your ult, and rip through a team.

Skills and Items
When I play Trundle, I like to focus on beefing up defensive stats and debuffing enemies with Rabid Bite and his ultimate, Agony. I level Rabid Bite first, and then alternate between Pillar of Filth and Contaminate. Both skills provide great benefit with each level, so I just go back and forth, grabbing his ultimate at levels 6, 11, and 16.

For items, I get a Wriggles, Merc Treads or Berzerker’s Greaves (don’t forget, Contaminate gives him CC reduction), Guardian Angel, and Trinity Force. If the game goes beyond that point you can either get a Banshee’s for survivability or the damage item of your choosing. I would personally go for Infinity Edge, but if the enemy team doesn’t have much in the way of Exhaust or Ignite, go for a Bloodthirster. You will probably be the last man standing more often than not, and that Bloodthirster only adds to Trundle’s sustain.

If I Could Change One Thing
If I could change one thing about Trundle it would be his ultimate. The skill is definitely strong in its current form, but I would like to see it offer a little more punch. I think Riot could easily shift more damage to the front end, improve the animation a bit, and increase the cooldown. Yes, increase the cooldown. I know his ult is great for killing dragon and Baron and the occasional golem if you’re low on health, but it’s just too boring in its current form. I think we would see a lot more Trundle players if he was just a bit more exciting to play.

Don’t forget to Subscribe to the Fearless Gamer YouTube channel for notifications when my newest videos are up. I should have Veigar later this week but I am heading out of town for a wedding so I can’t promise anything.

Champ of the Week, league of legends, Video

trundle trundle abilities trundle buffs trundle build trundle champ of the week trundle guide trundle jungle trundle nerfs trundle skills trundle spotlight

Champ of the Week: Trundle

September 20, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

After so many games as a solo in the mid lane, I think it’s time I get back to the place I’ve come to call home in so many of my games – the jungle. What better champion to play in the midst of normal draft mode than the champion that embodies so many LoL players these days: Trundle. This week I’ll be taking everyone’s favorite troll onto Summoner’s Rift to see where he stands.

Trundle is sort of a unique jungler in that his power level hasn’t changed much since release. In fact, I can only remember bug fixes for him – not even the slightest number tweak. Trundle is also widely underplayed, at least in my experience. Most serious players regard him as a threat, and I’ve seen him picked in several high profile tournaments. Still, he seems to be missing the special something that makes players really fall in love with a champion.

I’ll be focusing mostly on ways Riot could give Trundle a bit of magic – not damage, just some spark. His builds are pretty standard for a jungler, but I’m willing to get creative if you have any suggestions. I was going to test to see if builds like Warmog’s/Atma’s work on him but I already know the answer. Of course they do – Warmog’s/Atma’s works on just about anyone.

Check back later in the week for more impressions, and keep an eye out for the Veigar wrapup tomorrow.

Champ of the Week, league of legends

trundle trundle abilities trundle buffs trundle build trundle champ of the week trundle guide trundle jungle trundle nerfs trundle skills trundle spotlight

Trundle impressions – undetermined impact but he’s damn fun to play

December 2, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

I’ve been fortunate enough to nab Trundle in every game I’ve played today except for one, so I’ve been able to test a few different builds and get a little time in the jungle as well as the lane. On the whole, I’d say he’s the best champion release I’ve seen in months. I think Riot really hit the mark with his design and his artwork, which makes for a rewarding play experience.

I tried for a long time to come up with a character with which to compare Trundle, but I’m just not sure who it would be. In the jungle he feels a bit like Warwick – use Q to burst units down, W to buff up your attacks, ignore E and R until you need to gank – but his ganking is very different. Trundle also performs well in lane and I think we can agree Warwick does not. Trundle’s passive is probably among the best in the game, not because it does anything interesting but because it allows him to lane forever. It’s not quite as good in the jungle, but it will keep you plenty healthy when other characters would have to recall. I can make it through the entire jungle with plenty of health to spare long before my small creep camps will respawn.

I was a little shocked at the AoE of his Contaminate, but the skill can be a bit of a double-edged sword. The size is great for chasing and those sprawling teamfights, but it can also give away your position if you aren’t careful. Pillar of Filth is similarly huge, though, you won’t have to worry quite as much about it revealing you. My one complaint about these two skills is that they don’t deal any damage. It’s not really a complaint, though, because both skills provide enough utility that you don’t need the extra damage.

Utility is where Trundle really shines. I have yet to see any “wow” moments with him, but I have seen him used and used him to create highly favorable situations for my teammates. With just a Phage and a maxed out Contaminate buff, Trundle is nearly impossible to get away from, and he hits fast and fairly hard. His Pillar of Filth seems to hit the magic median between feeling good when you land it and bad when you miss. I have already blocked my teammates out of several kills. I even blocked a Fiddlesticks in the enemy base after a particularly nasty Rocket Grab, but I’ve also successfully shackled enemies in my team’s grasp.

Surprisingly, the only skill I found truly underwhelming is his ultimate. It’s a good skill, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not great, and it certainly doesn’t have that “ultimate” quality. Let’s compare it to Mordekaiser’s ult, which I think is closest in function. At rank 3, Kaiser’s Children of the Grave deals 34 percent of the target’s health in damage (17 percent on cast, 17 percent over the duration) and, on target death, gives Kaiser 20 percent of the target’s AP and damage for 30 seconds plus a pet with improved stats for the same duration. Trundle’s Agony deals 250 damage and drains 25 percent of his target’s magic resistance and armor and then that same amount again over an 8 second duration. I’m sure you can see where this is going. While it’s cool that his ult both deals damage and saps resistances, it’s sort of the worst of both worlds. The damage is pretty low, especially at level one (200 damage total, seriously?), and it doesn’t scale well. Conversely, the armor/MR reduction is terrible early and only really works late game against tanks. Granted, it’s very good against them, but you need to be hitting them for it to be good, and that’s not really the skill’s best use. Ideally, you want to be in the mix, stealing armor from the tank for survivability while you beat down the carry. The fact that you’re debuffing the tank is almost moot.

Even with those issues, though, I’ve found Trundle to be a lot of fun. I think he could have a very steep learning curve; expert players may take some time to get proficient with him, but he could very well become a force to reckon with. He deals very solid damage, can survive a bit of burst, and has a nice set of utility spells. All in all, he seems to be one of the most well-rounded characters in the game, while still managing to remain balanced.

league of legends

trundle trundle abilities trundle ability list trundle buff trundle build trundle nerf trundle op trundle skill list trundle skills trundle up

Trundle spotlight looks fantastic

November 30, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

The Trundle champion spotlight is officially live and, I gotta say it, I’m really excited. His not only look good, they look fun, and fun without being clearly broken. There was no “Vlad moment” where Phreak explained how the champion was good at every single aspect of the game. It also wasn’t boring, like the Irelia spotlight was.

As an example, I made this YouTube Doubler video. I know that comparisons are somewhat odious, and not every champion has to have huge and glowing skills, but there’s definitely something to be said for producing cool graphics while also producing some solid game mechanics. Irelia doesn’t really have either of those things. When I watch those two videos side-by-side (turn the sound off, by the way, or your brain will explode as it tries to reach Phreak’s level), there’s no question which character I’d rather play.

Champions, league of legends, News, Patches

trundle trundle abilities trundle ability list trundle buff trundle build trundle jungler trundle nerf trundle op trundle skill list trundle skills trundle spotlight trundle up trundle video

Trundle pre-release ability impressions

November 29, 2010 / Jeff Morgan

Trundle drops tomorrow, bringing the field up to a total of 65 champions. The announcement post confirmed the skill list that was leaked around his initial debut, a skillset that I think is among the more interesting in the game.

Trundle is, as far as I can tell, a debuffer. His skills seem to be aimed at breaking the tank/physical DPS metagame by stealing stats from those archetypes and providing support with an AoE slow. In all honesty, my first thought was, “Wow, this is what Mordekaiser should have been.”

Abilities:

Rabid Bite: Trundle bites his opponent, dealing damage and sapping some of their attack damage.

Contaminate: Trundle infects a target location with his curse, gaining attack speed, movement speed, and crowd control reduction while on it.

Pillar of Filth: Trundle creates a plagued beacon at a target location, which becomes impassable terrain and slows all nearby enemy units.

Agony (Ultimate): Trundle immediately steals his target’s health and a percentage of their armor and magic resistance. Over the next six seconds the amount of health, armor, and magic resistance stolen is doubled.

Decompose (Passive): Whenever an enemy unit near Trundle dies, he heals for a percentage of their maximum health.

Trundle is melee, and from the sound of things he’ll do very well with some sort of tanky attack speed build. That does make me a little wary, as it was my chief complaint with Irelia, but his passive is worlds better than hers and he has some additional utility that appears to be castable from range.

I’ll be most interested to see how his ultimate works out. The design seems much more interesting than Mordekaiser’s, to the point that I wish Kaiser had been released with this skillset instead of his own. It has a nice, short duration during which it will still provide a massive benefit to Trundle and a solid debuff on the target. It’s solid against tanks and carries alike, and it doesn’t have the ridiculous all-or-nothing pet system that Children of the Grave uses.

I don’t want to say much more, because his skills could go a lot of different directions. I could see his Pillar of Filth being either very useful or very situational. The same goes for Contiminate. In any case, you definitely will not want to fight him one on one. Check back tomorrow for my full impressions.

Champions, league of legends, News

anti dps anti tank dps killer melee metagame tank trundle trundle abilities trundle ability list trundle build trundle patch trundle release trundle skill list trundle skills