This line of thinking can be applied to a lot of skills though: If a champion deals bonus damage on every third hit as a passive, why not just up their stats accordingly and replace it with something more interesting? Really though, the worst thing are passives that pretend they're actually actives like Gangplanks friggin' Raise Morale.

Because bonus damage on every third hit is more interesting than increasing stats accordingly, and honestly - Zileans time reduction IS a really interesting and fun ability, I just think it falls short. It needs a buff, or needs to do something else.

i don't think it falls short at all

i just played a game where i played full support and by endgame through kage's pick-> morello's i had high cdr, and then right before we won i finished a chalice.

my w was on a 3.6 second cooldown. what this means is that the cooldown of my bomb was effectively two seconds, i could infinitely slow someone while also speeding someone else, and use my ult every 45 seconds or so.

that is DEVASTATING. anyone who gets caught can't get away, i constantly do damage, and keep my team moving faster than theirs. if someone gets low, i can ult them pretty much all the time. i single handedly give our team a crushing advantage just by being near the fight. getting there? sure not the easiest thing. but a full cdr zilean can win a game for a losing team

CDR is definitely the way to go when building him, and I do think the new chalice is super good on him but with your build (unless you skipped some items?) you had very little in the way of HP, Armor/MR - and if that's the case, the enemy team should have focused you from the beginning, nullifying most of your advantages. In order to really fulfill his goal as a 'nukey support' Zilean needs lots of AP and CDR to capitalize on the use of his abilities, which means he needs to ditch the 'defensive' components of his build, since supports don't usually make a ton of money - this makes him extremely squishy.

As for his ultimate, I'd personally rather have Lulus. It's virtually the same mechanic, but takes effect immediately - and has the bonus of mini-bouncing and slowing everyone near her target. It's the perfect turn around tool, saves allies, and can't be mitigated by the enemy team changing targets until the 'effect' wears off. The *only* advantage I see to Zileans ultimate is that it's way more spammable. I think most fights would be decided long before he gets to use it twice, though.

Also, not to keep the thread locked onto the discussion of my 'meh' feelings on Zilean - lets talk about dat new Ezreal skin!! Totally reminds me of megaman! Love how the skin changes as you level up. Really neat ideas. Hope we get more skins like this.

So about that downtime...

is the server still down? i know it was out last night.

Looks like it is back up for the time being, with a short login queue. I imagine it may get longer though, like it was a few days ago. :<

got over 1150 elo again

YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS TIME FOR A 12 GAME LOSING STREAK WITH 8 20 MIN SURRENDERS

Oh boy.

Gap closer, check. AoE ult, check. She's just missing an on-hit effect skill now.

I JUST WANT TO SAY.

I <3 JayC

Can anyone tell me why Gangplank uses mana?

I mean, his moves are the following;

- fire a gun.
- eat an orange.
- fire a gun into the air.
- signal a cannon barrage.

Why does it cost Gangplank magic power to do any of these things?

Why does Jarvan use mana? His moves are throwing a flag, sticking out his spear, and jumping really hard onto an enemy.

Why does Miss Fortune use it? Her moves are shooting bullets, shooting poison bullets, shooting a lot of bullets, and shootings a LOT of bullets.

Why does Graves use mana? His moves are shooting bullets, throwing a smoke bomb, moving really fast, and shooting a wide spread of bullets.

Etc, etc.

Quality post, would read again. <3

Anyway, the obvious answer is design oversight. Plank isn't particularly angry, so fury doesn't suit him. Energy is a ninja-exclusive thing last I checked. And going pure CD sounds like a bad time. Way too much poking power on his Q.

Have they added any other resource systems lately? Would any of them be appropriate on him?

I think just removing his mana would be problematic, because yeah, he'd be in poke heaven.

That being said, though, I really do think his problem is that his current mana costs force him to be extremely defensive against other champs he's like to lane against (Shen and Riven come to mind, especially), and even just using his Q to farm causes him to run out relatively quickly. In the interest of making him actually usable again, I think it might be in Riot's best interest to decide whether or not they want him to be a brusier or a carry; either make his Q more mana friendly, but less physically powerful (so he can farm reliably but can't use it to poke so hard early-game), or make his whole skillset a bit "tougher" early on so he can at least stand toe-to-toe with more popular bruisers.

eve, twitch, xin reworks next patch

some plant lady that looks dangerous

best patch 2012

Why does Veigar use mana?
His moves are the following:

-Magical Q Blast
-Magical Dark Matter Meteor Strike
-Magical Stun Field
-Gigantic Magical Blast that deals damage based on both the attacking and receiving champion's AP.

Come on Riot. :evil:

Neblix I will punch you in the soul

Everytime I get First Blood in middle lane:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5fns61bkm1qe3yjd.gif

Thinking about changing my signature.

Edit: Done.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/z...horns-revealed

THAT is what i'm talking about when i say creativity.

first day ip purchase.

Dunno if you saw her thread on the LoL forums last week, but she's actually the first champion that was designed personally by Morello. I hope he ends up designing more, she looks hella fun.

Xin's rework, Eve's rework, Twitch's rework, and Zyra, all in one patch? Good work, Riot. Keep this shit up.

I don't think the Xin/Stealth reworks are coming next patch, but they're coming soon.

http://imgur.com/a/Avnwr

New skins. Lee Sin as Sagat. Greek Cassiopeia. Fire plant Zyra. Mundo as a Warcraft styled orc.

I'm impressed. Riot's skin team has been knocking them out of the park lately.

Pretty sure they're in the next patch. I'll have to check that thread again.

That's a Mundo skin.

Close enough. Big angry dudes with axes.

i looked through the thread it definitely said next patch

though it could be some form of like 'oh yeah not THIS next patch like the NEXT next patch' tomfoolery

edit: that's adon not sagat. though they do look similar. that skin and the mundo one are clear copies i wonder how they get away with that. not that i care i like it but i'm surprised they can swing it

Same way they got away with Nunu's Sesame Street skin. Same way they got away from the Strider skin for Lee. Same way Dota 2 gets away with copying Lina Inverse from Slayers.

The Lee skin gave me a Sagat vibe because of the bald head. A red on the forums mentioned it had new animations, so I guess we'll see who it's more of a reference to when a video of it pops up.

http://i.imgur.com/CM1zZh.jpg

...Axe?

http://www.todowow.com/wp-content/up...hellscream.jpg

Grom Hellscream, actually. :P

Fire Plant Zyra, You are my new favorite champ.

Well...

http://i.imgur.com/LVPMM.gif

"I don't care if it's original to LoL. I care very, very little about originality, only making stuff that's good." - Morello

The skin barely even looks like Mundo anymore (Could just as well be Sion), and surely Grom Hellscream is green, not red for most of the game.

"Gangplank
Parrrley changed to "refund half the mana cost if it deals a killing blow.""

THEY'RE SPYING ON ME

delaying zyra is one of the smarter moves i've seen in awhile

good for them in recognizing a design flaw and moving to fix it *before* release

AD Malz best now.

I read Zyra got delayed cause she crashes the game which honestly sounds a lot more like Riot.

but.. I want to play her.. :( so badly..

Zyra is so good. Her lane control is ridiculous, as is her ability to lock enemy champions behind their own towers during team pushes. I'm enjoying her a lot :p

Edit: After a few more games, I think she is easily the game's most adaptable champion. I've tried a full on support build, maxing E and taking only one point in Q -- with an aggressive champion like Vayne or Twitch with you this works very, very well.

For soloing you'll want Q first before the stun for max damage potential. You can out-gun nearly everyone in the cast if you get the jump on them -- open with E into seed, followed by Q into seed, then ult. Place the ult so that if they flash backwards they still get hit (range is large enough, likely to be nerfed eventually). Insta win against damn near anyone.

If you're about to be ganked, try E --> seed --> ult and you'll likely get out, even against two or three.

so somehow i have clamored my way out of elo hell with none other than... poppy?

how did that happen?

Fixed that!

to anyone who hasn't already figured this out, when you're playing and someone starts saying dumb shit, just mute them immediately. it's amazing how much better you play. i started doing that this past week and have turned around some pretty well lost games.