League of Legends General Discussion Thread

[Meciflorean]

I agree about Lux, she is my favorite champion so far. I like all her spells, and the passive is very fun to use. And a well timed ult can cut down runners, steal buffs, even Dragon, though smite makes it unreliable.
Will be saving up IP to buy her for sure.

Does anyone here use smartcast (Shift+q/w/e/r by default I believe) to any extent?

[Gustaran]

I believe this discussion about tiers is highly exaggerated anyway. Usually these lists are created by professional top players who play a very different metagame.
I'd suggest to anyone to learn a champ they like and feel good about and not just pick the highest rated top tier champion.
And most importantly: Riot can decide at any point to nerf a champion. How awful, if you just spent all your saved IP on a champion you don't even enjoy to play with.

[antisocialmunky]

Is the nerfing usually done Fruit of the Month(Nerfing the current super awesome thing) like or more deliberately?

Seems like a lot of people talk about this when referring to champs they used to play.

@Sullla - Liked the new video about team battles :D I don't have a youtube account so critique-wise: Maybe you should do that sort of thing as kinda a companion video to any really long/cool game. Don't integrate it into your casts (because it breaks the flow too much) but make a separate video analyzing some of the really good/bad plays from each game.

[Speaker]

I believe this discussion about tiers is highly exaggerated anyway. Usually these lists are created by professional top players who play a very different metagame.
I'd suggest to anyone to learn a champ they like and feel good about and not just pick the highest rated top tier champion.
And most importantly: Riot can decide at any point to nerf a champion. How awful, if you just spent all your saved IP on a champion you don't even enjoy to play with.

I strongly disagree. Just like any other game, League of Legends is not perfectly balanced. Some characters are better than others. Player skill is, of course, still important. And Elementz isn't a know-it-all, so his placement may not be perfect. But to deny that there are character tiers is just silly.

[sunrise089]

Well we're arguing over degrees, right?

That said, I think Speaker's point is certainly helpful. My attitude is if I'm going to learn a random champ from day 1, why not learn the champ that gives me the best chance of winning? Yes, you can move outside KogMaw+Miss Fortune+Sona, but no real need to be masochistic and pick the 8th best ranged carry just to do it.

On the other hand, no one is denying that player skill > champ selection. And, if you have some reason for wanting to play a certain champ, then do so. After all it's just a game. But the argument probably should be what Uberfish said above - "Katarina is just darn fun," not "I enjoy playing Katarina therefore I maintain she is actually an objectively good champion."

[Speaker]

On the other hand, no one is denying that player skill > champ selection.

Consider that the matchmaking system aims to match you with people of the same skill level. So wouldn't that give a huge advantage to the team picking the better heroes?

[Gustaran]

I strongly disagree. Just like any other game, League of Legends is not perfectly balanced. Some characters are better than others. Player skill is, of course, still important. And Elementz isn't a know-it-all, so his placement may not be perfect. But to deny that there are character tiers is just silly.

Nobody denies that there are some champions that are stronger than others. But I strongly reject the view that games at average elo level are decided because of different character positions on the tier list.
Things like team composition, team strategy, group fight abilities and individual player abilities by far far outweigh any tier issues.
After all, you don't tell Sullla "Look, we know you like Karthus and play him really well, but the tier list says he's not top tier so drop him".

To put it in a nutshell: It's very dangerous to make fun of the enemy team's Evelynn, because "everybody knows she is garbage according to the tier list".
More often than not, you get destroyed by exactly that Evelynn. And to show that this school of thought goes up to the pro level as well: Arguably the best American Super Street Fighter 4 Player, Justin Wong, publicly announced that one of the new characters - Adon - was "ass and the second worst character in the game". Next thing you know JWong was eliminated in the biggest tournament of the year by - Adon.

So wouldn't that give a huge advantage to the team picking the better heroes?

No. The advantage would be rather small (pro level is another story, of course).

That said, I think Speaker's point is certainly helpful. My attitude is if I'm going to learn a random champ from day 1, why not learn the champ that gives me the best chance of winning?

That certainly makes sense if one of the recommended champs appeals to you and quite often it is even a more enjoyable experience if you have success early on with your pick.

[Krill]

Don;t tempt fate, as the saying goes.

Has anyone seen the 9 tiers of ELO hell yet? I was wondering, is that only for ranked games?

[uberfish]

The tier lists assume that both teams are playing draft mode, building for 5v5 fights and make very few mistakes early, this may be true at pro level but certainly isn't at ours where it's normal for one side to kill people/towers early on and and get an advantage that way. I find that the teams with 3-4 assassin types or pushers usually beat the balanced high-tier ones because of this. And many "low tier" characters shine playing for/against these strategies because mobility, evasion and 1v1 strength increase in importance, an example would be Yi.

[Speaker]

This whole point of view is flawed. How long do you plan to be low level players?

There is simply no point (aside from habit) in playing a character like Sivir when you can play Ashe, Miss Fortune, or Tristana. Same Mundo when you could play Mordekaiser or Garen. Karthus when you could play Annie, Kennen, or Anivia. And so on.