Tag: tt (Page 2 of 2)

LoL: Dealing with losing streaks

Summoner's Rift defeat.A couple weeks ago I went on a tear. I had been somewhere around 50 games over .500 for a little under a month and for whatever reason it seemed the stars had aligned. I was getting matched with smart teammates who could communicate and move as a group. Even when my teammates left a little to be desired, my opponents were always in far worse shape. My win count climbed and climbed until I plateaued sometime last week at 69 games up.

I should have seen it coming. Over the course of the past two weeks I’m now down 16 games, back to 53 over even. I know, that’s still 3 games positive, but when the swings come in batches of 15 games or so, I don’t really know what to do. As it stands I’m about as frustrated as I’ve ever been with the game. As my friends and I like to say, I seem to be losing the teammate lottery time and time again.

Once my score dropped below 60 games up, I decided I would go tryhard, choosing only the strongest toons for the map at hand. I rolled a bunch of games as Jax and Poppy on TT and had my first Twisted Fate match on SR in a long, long time. None of it seemed to matter. I carried the SR game handily, with 2 legendary streaks and a handful of turret kills. The rest, though, were mostly losses. I’ve had teammates AFK, teammates leave, teammates who start fighting with one another before the game even starts. The latest trend is teammates who refuse to get survivability. Two games in a row I played with an ally Morgana. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but Morgana dominates on TT if she’s played well. The spell shield alone is enough to make any DPS champ climax with glee. Throw her ultimate down in a team fight and you’ve got nearly guaranteed victory.

There is one caveat: she has to live. You know what doesn’t help her live? All the blasting wands my teammates keep buying. Then there was the Ashe that refused to buy any health items against Sion, Nasus, and Shaco. I’m sure you can imagine how that turned out.

By this point I’ve given up on the tryhard comps. My last game I played Yi. I was legendary. We still lost because of the aforementioned Ashe. I’ve got my fingers crossed for some good action in the next round of games I have time for. I’ll be playing whoever strikes my fancy until I can turn this ship around. At the very worst, I figure my ELO will drop to the point that I can just steamroll some opponents and hope that the streak will turn in my favor.

LoL: Finding the balance on TT

TT fight in action.Since Twisted Treeline launched in matchmaking I’ve been able to spend most of my time in game learning the new map. I feel pretty comfortable with the general mechanics but there’s something I have yet to master. As much as I try to fine tune my comps, I find myself overwhelmed or outmatched often on TT and its usually for very different reasons.

As a for instance, I had a game earlier in the weekend in which a Singed/Nidalee/Ezreal completely rocked my world. Both DPS were packing flash and would flee while Singed poisoned my team to death. Granted, our own Nidalee was hesitant to participate in fights to the point of basically losing us the game, but that actually made me realize what’s so tough about TT. The new map exacerbates any weakness in your team, whether it’s the player or the comp. Because the fights are smaller you can afford very few mistakes.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen on TT, and one I keep making myself, is a lack of preparation against your opponent. A lot of teams tend to be very tanky on TT, so it’s important to have a large healthpool yourself, even if it means gimping your DPS a bit. A full-on damage farm doesn’t mean anything if you get bursted down in a blink. By the same logic, you better be able to rip apart those escapable toons. If they’re constantly able to get away you’ll find yourself frustrated and level-gapped from the constant running.

If you’re having comp issues, make sure you’re packing enough DPS. Champs like Mundo and Poppy are popular because they mix high survivability with excellent damage output. Get your squishiest DPS to bring cleanse and hopefully you can make it out of TT with a few wins.

LoL: 3v3 impressions

Twisted Treeline action.I haven’t had a ton of time to spend on Twisted Treeline so I’m just going to give you my initial impressions. Treeline is a very different experience from Summoner’s Rift. It’s much faster, much more combative, and for me, a lot more fun. It does have its setbacks, though. The list of potentially successful champions is pretty short and certain team comps just don’t stand a chance.

For now, the strategy on TT seems to be buff control at the two major buff locations, lizard and dragon. The buffs provide large amounts of gold to the controlling team and some welcome DPS boosts for all of the early game ganking. When building your composition, be sure you have the ability to rip down those neutrals fairly quickly. I played a game today against an Annie/Kayle/Ryze comp. They struggled, to say the least.

Other than that you need your basic CC along with early killing power. Mundo does extremely well, especially if he gets enough regen. Sion is another great choice, as is Ryze, Shaco, Jax, and Gragas. Early game burst is key to your gold generation and helps you free up the map for pushing. Towers have much lower health in TT so they’re easily pushed. You need to be aware of a team’s pushing potential and try to defend. Leaving your inhibitor turrets undefended for even a short period of time can be the difference between a win and a loss.

Really, TT is all about teamwork. That Annie/Kayle/Ryze comp was brutal at level 6. We’d open up on a target, Kayle would ult, and we would almost always die instantly. As the game progressed, though, we had enough MR to withstand the initial burst and they didn’t have much left. It was just a matter of time before we aced them repeatedly and pushed straight to the nexus.

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