I disagree with spellman. The most important thing is learning the game. Make plays, see what happens. You are at a point where if you don't try to make plays, you will just rely on your team to carry you. Playing passive is fine, playing scared of losing because a play that you think might work doesn't isn't. If it goes wrong, analysis afterwards. Use replay, show replay. more gg, more skill.
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Remember how we always talk about carrying the team?
Well, I didn't lead in kills. But I managed to wrangle the morons on my team to stop being morons. You know, like stop focusing the tank Cho first. Or don't siege a tower by yourself. Or group up, pressure top, then switch mid. Only way I know how to carry as Taric.
First, wtf is this team (Zed Naut bot lane got crushed)
Second, Carry Taric Carry. Stun Shatter Ult. And heal all the important people. Mostly Graves. And Akali.
Mantheon crushed our mid. But there's only so much he can do when stunned.
The other team died 50 times in a 34 minute game? Their positioning must have been... interesting. Congratulations.
spellman, you should get a ruby sightstone as quickly as possible when playing suppport. It's essentially the Season Three version of a Heart of Gold: health and passive gold generation in the form of renewable free wards. Against a team as AD heavy as theirs, I would also suggest prioritizing a Locket (armor, health, CDR) over the Shureliyas. And most top support players no longer get a crystalline flask now that it's been nerfed in cost, but that's more of a judgment call. Your itemization was pretty good overall - a lot of these builds on the other players are very, very bad.
(February 25th, 2013, 08:52)Sullla Wrote: spellman, you should get a ruby sightstone as quickly as possible when playing suppport. It's essentially the Season Three version of a Heart of Gold: health and passive gold generation in the form of renewable free wards.
Its a good option to be sure, but yesterday in between the EU LCS games Krepo (from Evil Geniuses) was talking about how the sightstone was a safe gold efficient item but wasn't neccesarily the one right choice. He made the valid point of if you buy a ruby crystal or something that helps in a fight and this purchase gets you a kill that the sightstone wouldn't then its clearly worthwhile being flexible on the purchase. I can't explain it nearly as well as he did with all the positives/negatives associated with the decision but I'd trust him to have a good idea of what he's talking about.
"We are open to all opinions as long as they are the same as ours."
This is my misery of being in Silver: teamfights mid all day. And yes, I secured like 6 kills in our bot lane. Graves was wicked good on point and following my stuns. We lv1 FB and snowballed hard from there. Guess I should buckle down and carry myself harder out of Silver (read: play a lot more so I get good enough to always carry).
I've mostly been grabbing just Sightstone then rushing Aegis or Locket. I don't usually need the extra wards (rather carry a pink or 2) and haven't been running into as bad HP problems. Or at least my other tier 2 items provide the HP bonus.
Shureliyas was so we could chase and retreat out of Hecarim. And I picked it up right before our final push. Locket was next (sell flask).
Stories from Silver:
Jungle Nunu messes up his smite.
Support Sona gets the Blue instead.
Sona commences to out sustain MF/Soraka with the blue and give Trist a double kill at level 2.
In the spirit of ridiculously fun support games, I present to you:
The Katarina was a huge pain (she was Gold II, duoing with the Riven who was Bronze II). I'm in Silver I. Teamfights were a nightmare - I had to locate the Kat and critterise her within about a second every time. But eventually we pulled through in what might be my best ever support game.
Almost twice the damage on champs compared to second Had two games like this today, other one was with Lux.
Feels good to carry once in a while, rarely get to feel so powerful as support main.
![[Image: taric20130224.png]](http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu274/spellman23/taric20130224.png)
Congratulations. 
![[Image: bestluluna.jpg]](http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3131/bestluluna.jpg)
![[Image: KkSDkvpl.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/KkSDkvpl.jpg)
Had two games like this today, other one was with Lux.