League of Legends General Discussion Thread

[spellman]

So bummed I have things Tuesday evenings...

[Enoch]

http://eu.leagueoflegends.com/tribunal

Tribunal is up in Europe. Level 30s only so I'm not sure if it is actually working!

[Sir Bruce]

Losing a 5v4 is so demoralizing. Especially when I'm playing Zilean and let Tryndamere free farm a lane for 15 minutes but then he tries to 1v4 the other team 4 times in a row at the 20 minute mark. The other lanes lost too and I'm stuck with no farm and can't do anything about everyone instantly dying to the enemy team.

[Dantski]

One thing that seems to happen to RB teams I play in is that we often outfarm the other team in the first 20-25 mins of the game, but find ourselves 4-10 down in kills. Now when I jungle I feel like our lanes are too pushed, or our lanes are too far down in HP to effectively gank, am I wrong? Should I just gank a losing lane repeatedly not necessarily to get kills but to give them an easier lane? I usually opt to just keep jungling when I'm able to gank because the opportunities aren't nearby. Should I look to run all the way from one side of the map to the other in the hopes one lane will stay overextended enough for me to gank?

The better farming but poorer ganking by our side can be frustrating, feels like we should be crushing in some games and our inability to shut down lanes we're clearly winning is part of it.

Also once we get a kill or two 25+ mins in, I often ping baron, or type in chat something about doing baron or pushing an exposed lane and we almost never do it. Lately I've stopped doing this as much because its exasperating to try and provide some kind of team focus and get ignored. Running around after singed (without stuns of course, because our teams hate having stuns!) is only amusing for a short period of time.

/rant

[Sullla]

Winning a lane doesn't just mean getting more farm. It also means not dying to the enemy team. Kinda basic, that. I don't know what more to say, other than if your team is down 4-10 kills at the 20 min mark, then you are actually NOT ahead at that stage of the game, and should play accordingly.

A jungler who never ganks lanes is almost useless. It's not just about getting kills either - you have to put fear and uncertainty into the solos on the other team. Watch the high ELO stream games: their junglers are always going after the enemy team solos relentlessly, trying to put them behind and get them underfarmed. This is where the whole logic behind the roaming metagame comes from, shut down the enemy solos. I believe that you definitely should be trying to gank lanes that are losing. Otherwise the solo in that lane will fall further and further behind. A jungler/roamer can do a lot to help out even without getting kills.

I don't know what to say about team communication, other than the fact that it's extremely important. Get everyone on Teamspeak if at all possible. Always look to go for Baron if you win a teamfight in midgame, and can do it safely. Don't waste time chasing enemy champs around the map. And so on. We normally win more games than we lose because we play smarter than the enemy team, not because we have more inherent skills.

Anyway, I feel that a big issue is simply a lack of Realms Beyond group games recently. Let's try the Thursday night idea tomorrow and see how it goes. An RB game night as opposed to a YouTube game night. I'll hopefully be online starting around 6pm EST (23:00 GMT).

[Deceptus]

A jungler who never ganks lanes is almost useless.

Even though I routinely fail my team whenever I jungle, I'd like to point out that it's twisted to a whole new level in a typical solo queue game. As the AIs fear you are becoming too advanced in Civ4, typical solo laners in solo queue have the WAYGYN.

Why Aren't You Ganking You Noob is something that a typical sheep will say after going like 0/3/0 in the lane and blaming the jungler for their apparent inactivity when their deaths are their fault for never harassing the Nasus they are laning with and pushing to the enemy turret with a fervor of a thousand winged hussars.

The problem is that jungler offers: a solo lane, a "wild card" that can explore the entire map, usually wards for the team if he isn't a scrub like me, he also provides a measure against the other jungler, overall map and buff control... but especially if you're a Shaco or Nunu or someone with similar ganking potential, you can't be expected to gank Ghost/Flash Corkis who never leave the safety of their turret. Sure, you can attack them and probably waste some of their summoners or even cause them to back off for health, but that last one is already hard to do even if they've overextended slightly past the river. You might have a better chance of killing that other guy who is not nearly as escapable. After all, you are buidling an advantage.

And sometimes you can't gank because your teammates are incompetent at setting up ganks. Since for junglers speed is gold, you waste time if you try to wait and wait for lanes to overextend - something you don't see me doing anymore, I prefer to go back to my small golems or wraiths if I have to wait an eternity to gank. And whenever you show up at the lane, the other jungler knows about this and can take advantage of your position by even getting one of your buffs.

Being a jungler is more about presence than anything else. Jungler doesn't have to kill the laner. He can zone him, cover for his laner, help if it's an unfair 1v2 or just force out of lane to starve out of XP or cash. Like, last time I played against Sullla (the game where I brought my team down) I just showed up in the warded bush without even possessing my ultimate and he flashed back when he didn't even have to. It was probably just a mistake, but if you can make someone commit a mistake, more power to you.

Also, I lost to another smiteless jungler today. Who had 26/0/4 masteries, so no XP mastery. He was much faster in everything, INCLUDING the initial jungle run and leveling up. I suck at this game, so you probably shouldn't even have read this post. I think I should man up and jungle without Smite, since I never win games against those supposed "scrubs".

[spellman]

And sometimes you can't gank because your teammates are incompetent at setting up ganks.

yeah. Just had a game where Amumu would jump into the enemy team when we we're in position, then blame us for not following the tank. And kept complaining their team didn't even have a tank (except as I pointed out Irelia bought tank items). I was a super farmed Corki and still couldn't help us win.

[Gustaran]

And sometimes you can't gank because your teammates are incompetent at setting up ganks.

That's an interesting point: If you have a jungler sitting in the brush and your opponent is at 100% health, the gank most likely won't net you an easy kill.
IMHO, the best thing you can do as a laner is to make your enemy think he can kill you and make him commit to a fight. When both laners are low, a jungler can enter and ensure the kill. And from what I've watched/heard on streams, it's usually not that great to have a jungler lead the gank, unless it's a sure kill, since your opponent immediately knows it's a 1v2 and will start running.

Also, I lost to another smiteless jungler today. Who had 26/0/4 masteries, so no XP mastery. He was much faster in everything, INCLUDING the initial jungle run and leveling up.

That sounds weird, arent you the stonewall008 of RB ? What champions did you use ? And even if you could jungle without smite (probably Nunu, Fiddle, WW with all Aspeed runebook) I believe it's still important to have smite available for a later Dragon/Baron.

[Deceptus]

That's an interesting point: If you have a jungler sitting in the brush and your opponent is at 100% health, the gank most likely won't net you an easy kill.
IMHO, the best thing you can do as a laner is to make your enemy think he can kill you and make him commit to a fight. When both laners are low, a jungler can enter and ensure the kill. And from what I've watched/heard on streams, it's usually not that great to have a jungler lead the gank, unless it's a sure kill, since your opponent immediately knows it's a 1v2 and will start running.

Very true, and the reason I probably won't dive full-health opponents unless I'm Warwick or they forgot to pack their escapability.

Sitting in the brush and waiting forever to overextend is just going to get you behind. It's like in competitive StarCraft - you might like to micro your units at the front and pick off targets to ease the fight for you, but if you do that while neglecting your mineral lines, you will start getting behind for every drone that was idle for the duration. Which is why I probably won't be waiting in that bush in hopes that Jarvan suddenly disconnects in the middle of the lane and be easy pickings, I'd go for nearby jungle camps or tell my laner to initiate or forget it.

Of course, a lot of the time I tend to gank 1v2 lanes. These rarely achieve kills, even rarer - double kills, but a lot of the time they are a good way to relieve the laner because the guys that have been harassing him might easily just back off. Or at least you can cover for your laner or simply join his lane. It's perfect though if you first gank the mid lane and go to a 1v2 lane with your friend from mid lane. You don't even have to score a kill on the mid, just scare him off straight and force him to read two "Ally has been slain" messages after your solomid is relieved for a few seconds.

That sounds weird, arent you the stonewall008 of RB ?

Poland is the new Native America, amirite? :neenernee
No. I just play a lot of junglers. I like the role and associated champions. If stonewall008 is the professor, I'm probably just a student. ;p

What champions did you use ? And even if you could jungle without smite (probably Nunu, Fiddle, WW with all Aspeed runebook) I believe it's still important to have smite available for a later Dragon/Baron.

I played Udyr in that game and I don't have an idea how I managed to get outjungled, as the only thing I did faster was the initial gank which scored first blood for Dantski - who, ironically, was the only person on our team with no CC. Maybe I just didn't commit to farming as much as I should have had, plus we've been very behind for most of the game, so maybe I don't only have myself to blame.

But this highlights how bad actually I am that I am somehow capable of getting outleveled by a jungler while having free 500~ true damage every 57/70/75 seconds of the game.

Also, I enjoy that HotshotGG is about to play a Shen game using his "Shaco" runepage, which features Mpen marks for some crazy reason...

I need a new runepage, why the hell must they be so expensive?

[Jowy]

First quadra kill I've caught on cam Got a few of em on my beginner days but didn't think they were that special.