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As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
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League of Legends General Discussion Thread
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8 minutes of non-stop action with the Monkey King:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYZmv8upiGY  (SCNR)
"Next champ to be released" is always the coolest thing evar. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone post "Wow, champ ____ will be amazing when they come out!" Riot is very, very good at pumping people up for the next champion, and getting them to spend their RP. (With mixed results: release Yorick and post-patch Yorick being good exampls of the wild swing in potential outcomes.)
Apologies for being a cynical old bastard. I do find it amusing how easily people are persuaded to buy a new champion they know nothing about.
VoiceOfUnreason Wrote:Does anybody have any insights on learning creep micro, something to streamline the process beyond "keep practicing until you recognize the patterns"? This is one of my major strengths -- I'll write something up a bit later. VoiceOfUnreason Wrote:Does anybody have any insights on learning creep micro, something to streamline the process beyond "keep practicing until you recognize the patterns"? OK -- as I mentioned, this is one of my strengths. By no means does this make me as good as Chaox, or anything approaching; unfortunately, I suck at the actual fighting part of the game. But farming I can do pretty comfortably, which compensates somewhat. I main an AD carry (Ashe), perhaps for this reason. Creep micro is something that is deceptively difficult to learn. It's also one of the most important things to learn in the game if you fancy playing a ranged carry at any point, which are typically weaker in lane than AP carries, but rely heavily on being able to farm gold and buy items. The importance of farming is hugely underestimated at low ELO, and indeed, it is one of the biggest differences between average players and good players. To begin with, I must also stress the importance of other matters when laning, particularly with a jungler in the game. The mechanics of farming are not particularly difficult to pick up, if you've had some practice, but what is difficult is executing optimal last-hitting while keeping an eye on the macro parts of the game as well. You need to keep in mind the range and nature of the abilities of your opponent(s), the abilities of your lanemate (if you have one), and the likelihood of a jungler gank at any time. Does your opponent have a heal/health pots? If so, it is worth it to harass him, or do you just want to exclusively farm? If the enemy jungler is Warwick, you're probably safe before you hit about level 5-6 -- if he's Nunu, you need to watch for a gank fom level 2. Doing all this while thinking about last hitting is a big challenge. Eventually it will become second nature, but until it does, don't worry about missing a few last hits if it means you're not dying to that Nunu gank. Keep moving! Last hitting is much harder than it first appears, chiefly because of one reason: your character will automatically attack if you stop moving and there is something hostile in range. This creates a couple of problems. Firstly, if you stop moving, you have no way of controlling which creep your character will attack. Secondly, it means you can't attack again for at least another second. Most characters can get one attack off every 1.5 seconds at early levels, so if a creep dies in that time, that's a missed last hit because you stopped moving a couple of seconds before. There are two solutions to this. One is the S key -- S stands for 'Stop' in this case, and it will stop your character both from moving and from attacking. Unfortunately, standing still in lane is not something you necessarily want to do with two opponents facing you, so the most common and best solution to this is to keep moving all the time you're not attacking. This is well worth practising, simply for dexterity's sake. Attack, move, attack, move. This is also something that, if you watch high-level streams, all the really good players have down to a fine art. It helps in so many aspects of the game (not least of which is kiting) that is really is a necessity that you learn to do this. Know how much damage your autoattacks do Most auto-attacks at the beginning of the game do 50-60 damage. A Doran's Blade will help out, giving you an extra 10, but it still doesn't give you much of a window in which to last hit, in many cases. Notice how much of a chunk you take off enemy creeps with your autoattack, and plan to hit them accordingly. Note particularly the difference in this regard between melee creeps and ranged creeps (and tank creeps, but these are rarer). Melee creeps have more health, and your attacks will do less damage as a proportion of their health accordingly. Watch your creeps as well You may not know it, but even if you're in a solo lane, you're always competing for last hits. True, your creeps are at a significant disadvantage -- they can't attack as often as you, and their attacks only do 15-20 damage -- but there are more of them than there are of you. Watch them, and notice which of the enemy creeps they are hitting. Their projectile speeds are very slow, so you'll see in advance what will happen, and can react accordingly. Your creeps also won't change targets unless their current targets walk out of range, so they are in that sense entirely predictable. Plan your movement accordingly, and make sure you're in position to take that last hit at the right moment. If you see a creep just above your auto-attack threshold, notice if it's the first in line to be hit by your ranged creeps. If it is, you'll have to time your hit well; if it's lurking at the back, you may be able to pick it off with two hits. Just make sure none of your creeps are targeting it. Learn to last-hit at towers This is mainly for when you have a noob opposite you who insists on autoattacking and pushing the lane to your tower, but it's useful in nearly every game. Generally, you want to keep the line of creeps just on your side of the midpoint in the lane -- this gives you protection from ganks, while keeping the tower from taking your precious last hits. However, there is something you can do about this. It is generally very easy to predict how much damage towers will do, and whether you'll be able to ninja a last hit from a tower. This is slightly unreliable because creeps get stronger as you go through the game, whereas towers don't. But generally speaking, early on you can last hit a full-health melee creep after the tower has hit it twice, whereas a ranged creep needs two autoattacks after the tower has hit it once. Obviously, it's a bit more complicated when the creeps have a fraction of their health left, but there are still ways in which you can manipulate towers into doing what you want. It's very easy to predict which creep the tower will attack -- ie the first creep that comes into range -- and there's even a trace line to help you. If you know a specific creep will be attacked and it's at an unhelpful level of health (say 65-70%), hit it once to get it to half, let the tower hit it, and then hit it again to finish it off. Also, don't be afraid to use abilities to last hit if you have to. If a tower hits a full-health ranged creep, and I know I can't autoattack it twice, I'll usually volley it as Ashe. Other abilities on other champions can be used in the same way. Learn your character's attack animation and projectile speed This is more important for mages rather than AD carries. If you're a ranged carry, you'll have a super-crisp attack animation, generally with a relatively fast projectile speed, which makes it a lot easier to last hit. However, if you're Annie, you'll know that upon right-clicking on an enemy, she seems to spend an age drawing her right arm back, then throwing forward, letting out an 'urgh!' while a little ball of flame crawls towards its target, eventually hitting for a piddling amount of damage. This makes it extremely difficult to last hit with the right-click of mages. Fortunately, Annie has her spammable Q to last-hit with, but other mages aren't necessarily so lucky. So take some time to notice firstly how long it takes your character to release whatever projectile it is, and secondly how long it then takes to reach its target. If you have a character with a particularly slow projectile speed, standing close to the target can make things easier. However, it isn't always safe to do this. On a similar note, make sure you take into account your ping when last hitting. Also note, particularly for AD carries, that attack animations speed up as attack speed increases. So I hope that's helpful. I could go on and talk about creep 'macro' -- when to push lanes, when to constantly autoattack creeps, etc. But that's for a whole separate guide. If there's anything I've missed, please feel free to add to it!
Don't be afraid to last hit with auto with mages though. Every last hit counts. Even with a champ like Annie with such a slow auto, you still should last hit with auto. It may seem obvious, but with mages don't just sit there waiting for your q/w/e spells to come back up. Use your auto too!
Cull Wrote:Don't be afraid to last hit with auto with mages though. Every last hit counts. Even with a champ like Annie with such a slow auto, you still should last hit with auto. It may seem obvious, but with mages don't just sit there waiting for your q/w/e spells to come back up. Use your auto too!Yeah I don't quite understand why ppl say not to last hit with autoattacks on mages. Almost every single one I play needs to last hit with autoattacks in the beginning. Morgana wastes too much mana and pushes the lane if she uses W. Nidalee's spears waste too much mana to last hit with. Kennen can last hit with his Q, but if you're not being harrassed hard, you should just harrass the enemy with your Q and last hit with autoattacks. Fiddles E hits too many other enemies and it's not like he can waste mana farming with E and W, so he needs to use autoattacks. VarisNox Wrote:I do if people really want to see thatPretty sure I have one too. That game was funny. I have never gotten so many kills with Tristana's rocket jump before. "There is no wealth like knowledge. No poverty like ignorance." |
