Improvement for Season 4

I ended Season 3 in Silver 1. My goal for Season 4 is to get into Gold. Since I mainly play support, it will be difficult to get myself up there. Since that’s the case I’m going to get better at the other roles. I will especially need to work on my ADC and Mid lane.  To do this I will need to pick a champion for each role to get really good at. For support I have Leona/Taric/Lulu, Top I have Vladimir/Volibear/Darius/Riven, Mid I can play Vladimir/Ahri/Diana, Jungle I have Hecarim/Shyvanna/Lee Sin/Vi/Volibear. The trickiest role for me to learn is ADC. In season 3 I played a total of 11 games as an ADC. That is equivalent to 2.64% of the ranked games that I played in season 3. Basically I never played ADC. In season 4 I will need to at least learn to play one champion for that role. It will most likely be Ashe, Caitlyn, or Quinn.  

Support:

Since most of the games I played were as a support, I pretty much have this role down. The two things I still need to work on are warding and my synergy with the ADC. The warding won’t be too difficult to get down. The only thing to learn is how the new season four vision war works. As for the synergy with my ADC, I will practice this by duo queuing with my friend more. He is one of the best ADCs I know so he will be able to tell me what I should be looking for in the ADC and their ADC.

Top:

When I did bad top lane it was usually because I lost an early level fight, or I died to an early gank. To get better at top I’ll need to work on three things. I will need to develop better map awareness as to where the enemy jungler is at. I will need to get better at trading. Basically I seem to always be either too passive or too aggressive. I need to know when the right time for both is. The last thing I need to work on is my farming. Sometimes my CS is great and other times my CS is completely atrocious.

Jungle:

There are 4 things I need to work on when it comes to jungling. The first is to gank and counter gank better. i seem to gank at random times. I need to learn to position myself at the right time, at the right place. The second thing I need to work on is my aggressive jungle. I always play tanky junglers because then there isn’t really a risk. If I can get better at the more aggressive junglers such as: Evelynn, Lee Sin, Elise, and Udyr, then I will be able to carry games. Or at the very least, help to snowball a game. The third thing I need to work on is my counter jungling. I have gotten used to protecting my jungle well, now I need to get better at stealing buffs, and small camps. The last thing I need to work on is setting up dragons. I never concern myself about getting the dragon but if I get better at that then we will be more likely to win games as a jungler.

Mid:

Mid is pretty much the same as top. I need to improve my map awareness, farming, and trading. The only other thing that I need to do better for sure, is roaming. When I play mid I sit there and concentrate on farming. If I’m doing well in lane then I need to know when the right time to roam is.

ADC:

When it comes to the ADC I don’t really know what to be good at since I never play it. I assume I need to improve on the same things as when it comes to top lane. I’ll play with my friend and hopefully he will give me advice when I need it. 

Season 4 Pre-Season Patch 3.14

Jungle Changes: In this patch they have made a few changes to the jungle. The best change was the change to the grass patches. It is now easier to effectively ward specific bushes in the jungle. They have also added a new jungle camp. This camp is located between blue and bot on purple side, and between blue and top on blue side. I like this camp because it gives me more incentive to be near these side lanes. It was intended to give better gank routes as well as add more XP and gold to the jungle. The only reason I like it for the gank routes is because laners end up taking the jungle farm anyway so it doesn’t really benefit the junglers as much as intended. They also made some changes to the jungle items.

Jungle Items:

Wriggles Lantern – Wriggles is, in my opinion, an even worse item than it was before. They removed the damage and life steal to give it attack speed and a gold passive that gives the jungler on-hit gold for autoing a jungle monster. It sounds good in theory… but in reality the jungler doesn’t get much farm because as I said previously, the laners take the farm. The extra word active that it provides is also good, but the item isn’t worth the gold of buying it if you only plan on getting it because of the ward. The only champion I would get this item on is Shyvana and Nocturne because they both farm their jungles a lot.

Spirit of the Sectral Wraith – They took away the spell vamp and added a new passive. When you kill enemy champions, or get an assist you will receive extra gold. Since this is not easy to do, this item is a risky buy. It will only be cost effective if you know you can get strong and possibly carry. This item is only good for Diana, and Evelynn.

Spirit of the Elder Lizard – The damage was reduced to 30 from 35, and added the same new passive as the Spectral Wraith. The only problem I have with this item is the same as the Wraith, it is a risky buy. You will need to carry to make this item worth buying. This item is good for Wukong and maybe Vi.

Spirit of the Ancient Golem – Reduced the health to 350 from 500, and added a new passive. Produce 1 conservation stack every 1.5 seconds and caps at 80. You get an extra 40 gold for killing a large monster for a price of 40 conservation stacks. I think the item took a big blow because of the reduction of the health. I also don’t like the new passive that much because laners take the jungle camps late game making it hard for you to use the conservation stacks. This is the ideal jungle item. It provides tenacity and other defensive stats making it a safe buy.

Support Changes: Supports are incredibly strong from this patch. Because of the new gold items (Mainly Targon) they receive WAY more gold than they previously had. This gold is mainly used for offensive items. It is also leading to a lot of troll support picks since a rich support can get away with more than they could when they were poor. Since I mainly play support, I love being able to buy items faster. I can finally make myself useful in killing enemy champs. I only have one argument against giving the supports so much power. The supports roam with the ADC, and the ADC was originally the powerhouse of the team. If the support gets fed, the can easily get their ADC partner fed too. This is huge when it comes to snowballing a game. The support and ADC are right next to dragon. If the bot lane gets fed, they can easily take advantage of the dragon, and that will give more gold to the other people on the team. In theory a strong support will lead to a stronger ADC, and the strong ADC will be able to capitalize on his power and utilize himself for being more destructive in team fights. This isn’t even acknowledging the fact that the strong support is almost as deadly as the strong ADC. The reason the supports re so much stronger is because of the new gold items

Gold Items:

Spellthief’s Edge – This item gives you: 10 ability power, 3 mana regeneration per 10 seconds, 2 gold per 10 seconds, and on-hit gold from auto attacks. The only problem I have with this item is that there are better items that you can build to get the same type of stats. If for some reason I did get this item, I would probably only build it into its second level item because that is when you are getting the most for your gold… that is if there weren’t better items to buy in this item’s place. If they buff this item I will consider buying it on Nidalee, Sona, Lulu, Zyra, and Zilean.

Ancient Coin – This item provides: 5 health regeneration per 10 seconds, 3 mana regeneration per 5 seconds, and its passive gives you 2 gold for being near an enemy minion that you did not kill. This item isn’t that great during laning phase but is better late game when you aren’t farming with anyone. I haven’t played much with this item yet but I would prefer this item on Blitzcrank, Janna, Karma, and Nami. The reason I chose these support champs for this item is because they will work well with the active of this item’s final form.

Relic Shield – This item gives you: 50 health, 6 health regeneration per 10 seconds, and the passive gives you two stacks to auto attacking a minion below 200 health will heal the nearest ally champion for 2% of your maximum health, and grants you the gold for the kill plus 5 gold. You regenerate a stack in 30 seconds. This item is the best gold item in my opinion because it gives you and your lane partner sustain. The active you get from fully upgrading the item is also good. The shield is strong on its own, but making it explode makes it just that much more worth having. If you don’t want the passive then just build this item into Targon. I would build this item on any support, but specifically one that does well when building tanky.

Sorry for making such a long post… but I only talked about a few changes from the 3.14 patch. If you would like to read about the other changes of the patch follow this link: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-314-notes#patch-support-items

I apologize again for making such a long post, there is just a lot to talk about with this patch. Thanks for reading!

Favorite Streamers of League of Legends

Wingsofdeathx:

He is 24 years old, and his real name is Daryl Hennegan. He was a professional league of legends player since April of 2012. I only say “was” because I am not 100% certain if he is retired due to injury. If he is not retired then he I would classify him as teamless. He is a graduate of the University of California Irvine with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science. He was probably the first streamer of League that I ever watched, if not the very first streamer I watched. He is a very entertaining streamer because of how funny and informative he is while streaming. If a new League player were to inquire in me for a way for them to learn the game quicker, I would tell them to watch his stream. He is constantly giving helpful tips, and explains why he does everything as he does it. He pretty much taught me how to play League, but especially how to play top lane. He is probably most well-known for his Riven and Lee Sin play.  To be very good at these champions is very impressive to me because of the level of mechanics needed to master these champs. It’s sad that he has an injury, making it so he doesn't stream as regularly as he used to, but he might be healing up a bit more since he has been streaming more frequently lately.

TheOddOne:

            He is 24 years old, and his real name is Brian Wylie. He is from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He has been Team SoloMid’s jungler since the first season of League. He is one of the best junglers in the game.  He has many nicknames: Admiral Oddone, TheGodOne, Oddbro, and most commonly known The General. I like to watch his stream because he is a very funny commentator. He is also very knowledgeable about the game. Along with Wings, Oddone also taught me a lot about how to play the game, but specifically how to jungle. I like how strategic and analytic he is. It’s also pretty cool how knowledgeable he is about history.

Esvper:

            I do not know too much about her since I have just recently started watching her. I do know though, that she is an ABC, (Amarican Born Chinese). She speaks English, Mandarin and Cantonese. Since she speaks English and two dialects of Chinese, her chat is very diverse and I find that really cool. Another thing I like about her chat is that since she doesn't get as many viewers as the professional players, she has less trollers and it’s easier to communicate directly to her. She is extremely nice too. If you play league then you know how refreshing it can be to find a player in-game that isn't a complete jerk. One of the best things is all the inside jokes she has with her viewers. She has a great streaming schedule too. She usually starts streaming at about 4am ‘til 9am EST. In League she usually plays ADC, mostly Vayne and Corki. I don’t play ADC much so I can’t give a very good description of her play style, but she does do well in her games. She isn't a professional player so that makes her stream way more chill (or chiller?).

Wings' stream: http://www.twitch.tv/wingsofdeath

OddOne's stream: http://www.twitch.tv/tsm_theoddone/profile

Esvper's stream: http://www.twitch.tv/esvper

Thanks for reading!

Expectations of Laning Phase and More League News

Top: Before you even get to top lane, you must first come up with a strategy of how you are going to play the laning phase. Usually I wait for more minions to come, and then I wait for the right opportunity to fight him so he gets minion agro. If there are enough minions there, it’s almost like having another champion in lane, fighting with me. The number one thing that the rest of the team will expect of you is to not fed (give the enemy top laner lots of kills). Your laning phase usually doesn’t end until you take down their top turret or they take down yours.

Jungle: The jungler has four major things that are expected of them. The first thing is to gank the lanes to give your teammates an advantage. The second is to control the buffs. If you manage to get ahead of the enemy jungle, it isn’t hard to harass him in his own jungle to keep him from catching back up to you. The third is to ward late game. Since the jungle doesn’t provide as much EXP as the lanes, you will eventually fall behind. Once this happens late game will be coming around and the support will need to buy items since they have been doing all the warding early and mid-game. The fourth major thing is to keep an eye on Baron. The jungler carries a summoner spell that allows himself to just click a minion or monster and do true damage. At level 18, the final level, the true damage will be 1000 damage. If the enemy team is organized and is ready to attempt baron they will be looking for an opportunity where they will have the upper hand. If you are ot paying attention then the enemy will get baron easily because you have 1000 damage with one click. If you aren’t there then your team has a slim chance of killing Baron.

Mid: Your job is simple. Don’t let the enemy mid laner get fed. The only other major expectation is to watch out for ganks.

Support: The support has a huge job. That is to do most of the warding. If the jungle isn’t kept warded then it will be easy for the enemy team to gank or set up an ambush. The other major role is to protect the ADC. The ADC usually lacks getaway abilities. That leaves them susceptible to enemy ganks.

ADC: The job of the ADC sounds easy but is actually quite hard. They are to get fed and keep the enemy ADC from getting strong. To win team fights, it is essential to have a strong ADC. If the ADC does not do well then the team will lack a huge asset.

 News of the Week:

Season 4 is ending this coming week. That has made the past couple weeks of ranked games somewhat annoying. There have been two types of people in ranked these past weeks. People are either trying extremely hard to move up in ranked so they get better prizes at the end of season 3. The other people just don’t care how they do since the season is ending anyway. This makes it annoying because the people who are trying super hard rage when they are losing.

Ahri skin link: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/skin-preview/announcing-popstar-ahris-spirit-rush-tour

Nasus skin link: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/skin-preview/infernal-nasus-prepares-ascend

Thanks for reading and have a good night!

Season 4 Changes

Hello! Welcome to another Blog post!

This week there has been some released information about the upcoming season 4. So far they have only gone into detail about the changes to supports. They have also given some hints to what they would like to do with the jungle. Since support is my favorite role and jungle is my second favorite, the released information has made me giddy with anticipation for what’s to come.

In season 3, supports had to deal with the short end of the stick. They must share a lane with the ADC in bot lane. The ADC gets all the CS (minion kills). Minion kills equal gold. The more CS a champion has the more gold they get and with that gold they will buy items to make themselves stronger. Meanwhile supports get nothing and are only there to ward and “support” the ADC in getting killed. The support is also supposed to help the ADC get away from fights since most ADC’s don’t have the best mobility. Since the support gets the least amount of gold, yet have to do all the warding, they rarely get past 2 or 3 full items throughout the game. In season 4, they are attempting to boost the amount of gold supports earn. I am thrilled by this because I play aggressive supports. If I get more gold, I will be more effective in fights and i should also be able to do even more warding. Another change they plan to make is making it so all champions have 1 ward at all times. Usually as a support I am trying to keep about 5 wards on the map at all times. If all the champions on a team use this ward that they are given then the map will have a good amount of vision in comparison to the current ward situation. If more people have wards then it will lift the burden off of the support to do all the warding. If the supports don’t have to do all the warding then that in turn will also help the support with their gold use efficiency.  This makes me very happy.

They have also given a little information on the changes to the jungle. The biggest change to the map in general is that they are adding a fourth jungle camp. I am guessing that it'is going to be a small camp. I doubt it will be a large camp because having a 3^rd buff that the jungle would need to take care of would be overwhelming. They also discuss how the jungle will provide more XP (experience points are essential for leveling up). I like this because in season 3, if a gank goes badly then the jungler falls behind. Same if he has buffs stolen. If there is a fourth camp then he has a better chance at keeping himself from falling behind. I don’t think this will be very beneficial to the jungler late game though. Late game, all the laners come in and take all the camps leaving the jungler with nothing. This is why after laning phase, the jungler pretty much becomes another support if he doesn’t get fed.

Basically I am excited that the supports are getting more gold because frankly it is extremely needed. There hasn’t been too much information released on the jungle changes yet, but I am happy with the fact that they are giving room for a jungler to farm (grind to get CS and XP) his way back into the game without relying on his laner’s farm. Also I wonder if a losing lane will be able to take advantage of the fourth camp so they can take the CS from it so they can go back stronger in their lane.

Season 4 changes overview: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/features/preseason-draws-closer

Vision ward changes: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3975411

Support changes: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3978129

Thanks for reading! Have any questions or comment then you know what to do!

Leauge News of the Week

Welcome!

The biggest change to the game is a new champion. She is named, “Jinx” and is the evil sister to another champion, “Vi”. She is like that very annoying younger sibling… Her story or background she is mainly just a trouble maker in her hometown that she finds to be too boring. She is an ADC, she comes equipped with: a snare, a slow, fast auto attacks that can be changed to slower attacks but they deal area of effect damage, she also can shoot a global rocket that does area of effect damage, the big rocket also does more damage as it travels. Even though she is mainly meant for the ADC role, I have also seen her played in the jungle. The person who was jungling with Jinx was very good at it. She didn’t gank much but she shot her ultimate at the best times and with incredible precision. From what I have noticed, she may be easy to target, but if she is not bursted down quickly, she will do massive amounts of damage and will be harder to kill the longer you fight her. Even though I know she can be a very strong ADC if played right, I will not be saving my IP to get her. It has nothing to do with her as a Champion, I just don’t play much ADC so I don’t see the point in getting her.

On another note, TheOddOne streamed today. He plays as the jungler for the professional LoL team called TSM Snapdragons. I only had a chance to watch like five minutes but I’m happy to see him streaming again. He hasn’t streamed in about two weeks because he was on vacation. I have been waiting for him to come back because my favorite streamer (Wingsofdeathx) also does not stream very often. Wings doesn’t stream much because for the past couple months he has been dealing with a repetitive use injury to his hands. I hope he gets better, but for the time being he will remain missed.

Season four is right around the corner. It has been announced that it will begin on November, 11 2013. I am stoked for this coming season. I will be rooting for TSM in the professional play to make it back to the world championship once again. I will also be looking forward to the ELO reset. This season I only made it to Silver II. I have been trying to climb my way into Gold for the past couple months. Still, for my first year actually playing the game I am happy to have made it close to Gold. I will also be expecting the new 1v1 map to be coming out soon after season four starts. Lastly, I have heard a little rumor that the jungle is going to be remade or something. I am excited about this because it has the potential to completely change the way League is played.

That’s all the league news for this week.

More info on Jinx: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/champion-spotlight/champion-spotlight-jinx-loose-cannon

Oddone on vacation in Australia with his girlfriend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIkjetdYN54

Thanks for reading! Get pumped for season 4! Leave a comment or whatever and I’ll get back to you!

Champions

Hello and welcome to another blog from yours truly!

If someone were to ask me what the biggest part of League is, my answer to them would be champions. Champions are the characters you play as in the game. You can play games and earn IP (in-game currency) or with RP (real money). You unlock champions by spending a specific amount of IP or RP. Champions are usually played in a certain role. There are 5 roles to be played: top, jungle, mid, attack damage carry (ADC), and support. A champion is usually played in specific roles based on their effectiveness in those roles. Champions usually have certain items built on them. For instance if you are playing as an Amumu and the rest of your team has squishy (offensive) champions, it is in your best interest to build tanky (defensive) so your team has someone who can engage on the enemy team without being killed quickly. Amumu also has the ability to be strong when built with offensive item. If the team builds completely offensive then it will be hard for them to sustain through a 5v5 fight against the enemy team who has people building tanky. 

Like most people who play League, I have developed favoritism towards certain champions. My list of favorites has changed from what they were when I first started playing League. The first champion I ever started to like was called Malphite. He is primarily built to be a tank. He is normally played top lane or jungle, but it’s possible to play him as a support or mid. Even though he is a very strong tank, if my team were to need more damage, I can effectively build slightly more offensively. After I got used to the mechanics of league I started to play a lot of Diana in the mid lane.  There are two major offensive roles or “carries” per team. Mid lane has the Ability Power Carry (APC) and bot lane is where the Attack Damage Carry (ADC) goes. There are two forms of offence, attack damage (AD) and magic damage (AP). Diana is built best as an APC so she is mostly seen going mid, but she also has the potential to be played top lane or in the jungle. Diana was my favorite champion for a very long time. I liked how much burst damage (damage done in a short amount of time) she does. When I build Diana I go straight AP unless I lose my lane, then I build slightly more defensively. She can jump onto enemy champion from a good amount of range so she is good for assassinating squishy champions. Since I started to play ranked I have been playing a lot of support. It’s becoming the role I play the most unfortunately. I like support but if my team isn’t doing well then it is hard to be of use to my team. My favorite champion to play support as is Leona. I always build her straight tank. She is my favorite because she presents a lot of crowd control (CC). She can stun (take away mobility) the enemy 2.5 ways. I add the .5 because she has the ability to pull herself to the enemy champion and while she is moving towards them, they can’t move. She also has a slow and two area of affect abilities (AOE). With all this she is good at chasing down the enemy but more importantly, able to protect her own teammates. These are only three of my favorite champions but they represent my play style best. I like to dive in on the enemy and wreak as much havoc as possible in a short mount if time.

If you would like more information of my favorite champions:

Malphite – http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Malphite

Diana – http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Diana

Leona – http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Leona

If you would like to see my stats in ranked:

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/27931417#ranked-stats

Thanks for reading! If you have questions or have something you would like for me to go into more detail about please leave a comment!