I like this, and now wish I hadn't deleted it for space. I always loved me some Heimerdinger. I now theorize... your defeat!!

he's a riot to play, isn't he?

Riot's already stated that they're going to remake both Nasus and Veigar's Q spells because the farming mechanic is uncapped and have some pretty fierce anti-patterns going on-- with Nasus it's more apparent because he either does really well farming, or he gets zoned hardcore and can do no bonus damage in the late game. With Veigar, the +1 AP is not insignificant but can be made up for with items to an extent, so even an underfarmed Veigar can still be an asset to his team.

Didn't realize there was a LoL thread on OCR. Garian if you want to add me to the player list feel free, my name ingame is 'OrlparAmblecrown'. I'll start adding some people from OCR, maybe i can actually play some games with friends rather then go it solo like i usually do.

I tend to prefer the tank/mage/support architypes in the game for some reason. I always have trouble when playing a melee or carry, and I really enjoy playing that 'supportive' role in the game. And as for items, i really like the way they are organized in the game - if at a certain point in the game you say 'I need more armor' you can literally browse the items by armor and pick out something that potentially works with your build.

I'm online right now if anyone wants to play. :D

So did LoL get hacked earlier? I had all these suspicious system messages when I got back from lunch in my LoL client.

EDIT: Looks like they're still going on.

EDIT 2: Aaaand there goes the chat system.

This game is growing on me. Here are the pros/cons vs. Heroes of Newerth, IMO:

+ Matchmaking system is faster.
+ You can play against bots (great for practice.)
+ Masteries, runes and summoner spells add a nice layer of customization.
+ Heroes can't get fed so easily from deaths - eg. if you die, it doesn't seem like a huge deal overall.
+ Inhibitors respawn, allowing you to come back from a potential loss.
+ It seems like gold is easier to come by (maybe due to the death mechanisms.)
+ Respawn timers are shorter.
+ Shop interface is better.
+ Targeting skills is more intuitive (displaying range, AOE etc.)

- No denying mechanic makes laning one-dimensional sometimes.
- Some heroes and mechanics seem very unbalanced.
- The vast array of items is even more staggering than in HoN.
- Despite only having played a small % of heroes total, a number of them strike me as... incohesive. For example, why does a melee carry like Master Yi have a channeling self-heal? Why does Ezreal have a mix of ability power and attack damage abilities? Why does Kassadin have a passive that boosts his attack speed when he's an AP hero otherwise? etc.
- The graphics are worse, to the point where it seems harder to last hit due to lack of visual feedback.
- The game FEELS slower and less intense than HoN. Possibly because spells do less damage in general and heroes gain HP so much faster. This could be considered a pro, I guess.

I agree with all of those cons (save the denying thing, but we've talked about that)

there is an update to the game being worked on that is supposed to completely overhaul the visual style and make it less... hodge-podge, but Riot is incredibly slow at doing things so there's not really any ETA

and yeah LoL is ridiculously unbalanced; they recently buffed one of the already strongest champs in the game for some fucking reason and now she is absolutely zero fun to play against

I agree with all the pros mostly. Bots are good to get familiar with a champion but not so much for anything else.

As for the cons:

I think having more items is helpful in the long run, once you gain more knowledge about how to build what on who and when.
Graphically, I think the game looks great, and is more accessible to people with lower end PCs. I've had no problem last hitting due to any graphical interference.

Some heroes aren't meant to be straightforward. Yi is one of the best gankers in the game and combine that with jungling and you have a strong team player. His self-heal helps tremendously while jungling. Also, as you've pointed out, he is a decent carry in a lane. Kassadin's passive complements his W very well, making him more viable in a laning situation and supplying more mana to spam his E and R. As for Ez and any other hybrid characters, it's just that. Hybrids have more build options than those locked into one type of damage.

Yes, some heroes are unbalanced and annoying to play against; but I don't think Annie is one of them (if she is who Bleck is referring to) as she has zero survivability. Yeah she hurts but that just means you have to adapt to the situation.

I believe that denying actually removes variability from laning, rather than adding. Having to deny adds responsibility to laners who then cannot leave their lane as often because they have to deny in addition to farming. Gaining blue or red buff or killing dragon all of sudden become much more negative than without denying. Going back to buy items/heal then becomes a negative action, rather than a neutral or positive one.

annie is great if she single-lanes and isn't properly harassed. if you get in her face and drive her back, she's terrible later in the game and in teamfights because she simply can't survive.

The game feels slower because it IS. Compare the movement speeds, ability ranges, etc. Not necessarily a bad thing though, but it gives the game a very different feel.

Also, zircon, some heroes in LoL tend to have conflicting abilities because they're either meant to be played as hybrids (with items like Guinsoo's Rageblade, which provides both AD and AP) or simply to give you multiple options for an item build. That's why a lot of guides use the AD and AP prefixes to distinguish between the options.

Riot tries to go off the beaten track when it comes to characters designs, and I like them for that. In the Yi example, since he can't lane properly due to being squishy as hell, the self heal is useful when laning (rarely does a yi lanes) and when jungling.

In the case of Ezreal, there are several other champions who have a mix of AP and AD abilities, so you can pick which one fits your playstyle more. For example, You can play an AD Teemo or an AP teemo, AD hits harder and faster on the autoattack but AD Teemo's poisons, blind and mushrooms pack more of a punch. In the Kass case, it makes less sense since he has a hit and run playstyle, so yeah it's pretty useless.

EDIT: BTW my summoner name is Cagonaso, if someone wants to play a match just hit me up if you see me online.

I guess it's just a preference thing. Sometimes it's nice to play a hero who tends to have a single purpose, but excels at it. You sacrifice flexibility (to an extent) for a little more specialization and power. Like Slither from HoN, who centers entirely around poison effects and slows, or Behemoth and his series of chain AOE stuns. I'm all for having some hybrid heroes, but it seems like nearly every hero in LoL is like that.

I don't think having more items is helpful. Do you really need like 20 different AD items, or however many there are? Surely some of those could be consolidated? HoN has fewer items and even that I think is excessive. Just because you CAN put in that many items doesn't mean you should, for accessibility and balance reasons.

As for graphics, HoN is also very playable on slower computers, but if you play both games I think it's pretty clear that HoN has an edge in that department, and it really helps the game as a result.

When it comes to denying, setting aside the argument of whether tying it to last hitting is a good idea, it definitely adds variability. In HoN, you can choose to either actively deny, go for your own last hits, harass, or a mix. It's another tactical element. Laning in LoL is more boring to me (though still somewhat engaging) as a result. In HoN, leaving your lane IS a very negative action early on, but not because of denying: it's because you're missing out on gold/XP and potentially leaving your lanemate open to a gank, both of which are much bigger issues in HoN than in LoL.

I suppose I have to play HoN to see for myself on both issues. But from what I saw in DotA I didn't like denying at all. Then again I was a super noob when I tried DotA.

By the way, the chat system is back up if anyone wants to play :D

Actually I think the most annoying difference for me is that in HoN ganking is way more rewarding, making for a more active game. I played a game of LoL a few days ago with a few people from here, and I was LeBlanc soloing mid.

Now in HoN, the XP rewards for hero kills are such that leaving your lane and ganking a sidelane succesfully will generally put you ahead of a guy who just stays in lane and farms (unless that guy is Soulstealer). It's possible to pretty much win the game for your team by soloing mid with a strong semi-carry, ganking all over the place to secure a level and gold advantage, and snowball from there.

Back in LoL, I was at something like 10/1 kd by the time midgame rolled around, but the Vlad I was laning against was ahead of me in levels, despite having nowhere near the same amount of kills.
I ended the game at 15/8ish because I was relatively ineffective in teamfights and hadn't secured an early-game advantage for my team at all.

I'm not saying that allowing heroes to snowball is good game design in and of itself but I do believe that early-game performance should have some bearing on the rest of the game.

Actually you do have heroes who are very cookie-cutter or that excel at one thing only. For example, you have Cassiopeia (which I play a lot actually) which centers solely around poisons and slows, like Slither. There are others like Brand who is only an AP caster centered around doing massive aoe damage. And you have others like Tryndamere who are basically AD champions and nothing else.


I do love the multitude of options you have regarding to items. It's another layer that separates good players from bad players. A bad player would look at some guide and go by it, a good player adapts its items to the situation at hand. As for accesibility, there is a list of recommended items for every champion that you can see as soon as you enter shop, and that generally works for all of them, so you don't really have to skim trhough all of them if you are a total noob.

Indeed HoN has the edge on that aspect but I guess Riot decided to go the WoW route and have an engine that could work in practically any computer on decent settings so they could grab a wider audience. I certainly wouldn't mind if they changed the engine to offer a better graphical experience. Battles look more epic in HoN no doubt about it.

Regarding denying, I agree that's another layer of complexity that could be missing, but still I think they didn't do a bad decision by removing denying because the game works pretty well without it.

There are easily too many items with too few uses. Every AD (attack damage) carry gets Infinity Edge and Bloodthirster for damage and Zeal/Phantom Dancer for attackspeed. Every AP (ability power) carry gets Rabadon's Deathcap and Rylai's Crystal Scepter, anyone needing magic resist will get Banshee's Veil. It is rather dismaying really, because there are a lot of items that should see more use if they just weren't lackluster in comparison. I'm looking at you, Executioner's Calling (15% crit and 17% lifesteal with an activate that reduces healing/hp regen by half for 8 seconds on a 20 second cooldown). Morello's Evil Tome is another good example, it's basically Deathfire Grasp without the 30% nuke activate... it offers mana regen, cooldown reduction, and AP for only like 300 gold less.

Thankfully Riot acknowledges that Banshee's Veil is too strong so hopefully they do something to it soon.

Also be thankful you weren't around back when Ezreal could heal with his W. Those were dark days.

Re: Kassadin, his original design was a melee DPS anti-caster carry, and his suggested items used to reflect this. Somewhere along the way, the player base noticed that his ability ratios were insanely high and started building him simply as a nuker instead-- ignoring that he has the highest base dps of any champion in the game at the time (IIRC he's still in the top 3). He has an incredibly high base damage and attack speed, capitalizing on those can make DPS Kassadin a nightmare if played properly. Unfortunately, he takes a lot of finesse to play that way because it requires understanding positioning and paying attention to enemy cooldowns to avoid getting CC'd and focused.

Re: Snowballing, if you're getting a lot of kills early, buy a snowball item, or even two. If you can manage to hit that crucial 10th stack, you've already given yourself a huge edge over the enemy and should be able to keep it rolling. This is probably even more critical now since the gold rewards for killing have been reduced (down to 90 for extreme feeding and a cap of only 500 for killing streaks). In top level play those items aren't seen as much because there are generally fewer ganks happening, and losing those stats over a small mistake is a much larger setback than in a game where your team is generally rolling over the enemy. It's not really the best answer but it can go a long way in most of the matches we've played.

Bardic, Tensei, Zircon, Prophet and I just had the mot kickass game. Well done, gents, well done.

I also had an awesome game with Zero and his friends earlier.

Wondeful playin with you guys again!

Yeah that was a good game. Despite playing a support (Morgana) I completely forgot about wards until like halfway through the game, but at least we won so it's all good. :<

for my first game with alistar - a really fun tank, i must say - i think i did ok. i died a lot early, but once i got the hang of his survivability i think i got him now. he must be really dangerous if he gets a bit fed early. i'm willing to bet that he could easily take out two guys, maybe three in a teamfight with those stuns he has, and he's so tough with his ult.

In LoL, everyone should be buying wards every time they go back IMO. They're too cheap and offer SO MUCH to not be doing it to protect yourself, if not to keep an eye on Dragon/buffs. Too bad in most pub games I'm the only one warding and the people don't ever pay attention to the minimap anyway so... Yeah.

the wards should always be bought by the tank or the jungler, because they're the only ones who can be roaming around putting them in strategic places without putting themselves in too much danger

There is so much wrong with that statement why are you trolling me.

I am not sure if you are seriously accusing me of trolling but I assure you I am being serious here

not only should carries and/or off-tanks not have to worry about spending much needed money on wards, they probably shouldn't be wandering around in the jungle too much if they don't need to be or if they aren't accompanied

and if you're getting your team to protect the carry so that the carry can put wards down, I mean, come on

I understand your point, but they're really cheap, 75 gold is what, 3 melee minions? Lighting the map up like a christmas tree and being aware of every movement the enemy team makes is so much more powerful than having an IE/Rabadon's 20 seconds sooner. I would agree that in pub play the support/tank/jungler should be expected to ward, but if everyone is sharing the duty then the enemy will have no choice but to adapt (buy an oracle's elixir) or fail. It's win-win for the team doing the ward spam because they know where the enemy is or the enemy has to delay their items to deal with killing wards. Generally you don't want to go warding in offensive places if anyone is MIA anyway so babysitting a carry that's running off to ward is really silly too, I'd never suggest that... which brings me to my other point, it's never safe to invade their jungle unless 4 of the enemies are visible on the minimap and you're sure you can escape the fifth. Being a tank/support doesn't make a difference because getting caught off guard can seal the deal, but taking 2 seconds to ward the wraith/river ramp or the brush in mid is hardly exposing one's self to danger, particularly if the lane is pushed to their tower.

Also I wasn't accusing you of directly trolling me, it is my opinion that warding is something that should be done by the entire team-- Not necessarily aggressively unless there's a bit of map control advantage already (such as having taken a tower recently, particularly mid). It was just a reactionary turn of phrase, nothing personal meant, and I appreciate you clarifying why you have that opinion.

If you watched the championships pretty much everyone bought wards. There are spots that should be warded almost 100% of the time. Game time :3

There are items like rabadon's that are very popular and useful for anyone, but aside from a really small minority of items (like hauting guise) ALL items have their place in someone's build, as far as I've seen.

yeah whenever I make an unspecific statement about lol it's usually about pub play, you're definitely right in that wards are important to constantly have in premades

I find that wards are definitely a large determining factor in many of my pub matches in that the other team wards and mine doesn't and we lose.

I've started taking Clairvoyance when I play support, and it's amazing. Any time I _might_ want a ward somewhere, I just cast it. The CD on it is amazing compared to how rarely you can use Ghost, Teleport, or Exhaust.

what's the cooldown on clairvoyance?

55 seconds with the mastery, not sure without.

If you are running clairvoyance, then you should have the clairvoyance mastery, period. It's a _great_ spell btw, and if flash is phased out (as rumors suggest) then I expect to see much more use of it.

Had my first few games with Flash and it's really a lot better on most heroes than something like Ghost, so yeah, it's probably overpowered. It wouldn't be bad to see it go, or see it on an item, because portal key/blink dagger is actually one of the most balanced items in HoN/DotA imo.

Also got to play AP Teemo as solo mid for the first time and it really rocked.

flash being phased out would be pretty fucking nice

so would diminishing returns on CC

You mean tenacity?

I don't think PK is balanced in HoN. It's a sort of stupid item in that there are heroes who are basically useless (or a lot worse) without it, which is not good hero design.

naw, he's talking about heroes who stack stuns or slows on. i agree - making it so that status effects can't constantly be retriggered with the same effectiveness would be really nice. like, a 20% reduction in time or effect every time.

yeah that essentially

Uhhhh, I don't really see the problem with that. It's already balanced in the sense that if you actually stack on two stuns at the same time, the overlapping durations will technically cause one of the stuns to be a waste.

E: Unless there is some mechanic that I'm unaware of that actually adds up stun durations (i.e. a hero gets stunned from two different sources at the same time for 2 and 1 seconds, which results in a 3 second stun)