Tensei

Warwick and Udyr are close to unkillable in lane but that doesn't make them better in lane than in the jungle. Fiddlesticks isn't a bursty caster like Ryze or Annie and putting him solo mid really just nerfs his ganking potential to hell because you completely miss out on the infamous bush + ult = CAW CAW CAW combo in earlygame.

If you're laning with Fiddlesticks for some reason, go with Ignite/Flash. Ignite mastery gives you bonus AP when it's on CD, which is actually quite helpful early on. There are way better AP Carry laners though.

Teleport shouldn't even really be a consideration on Fiddlesticks since he's one of the most powerful junglers right now ( barely requires specialized jungle runes, capable of soloing Dragon at level 5, can easily gank every time ult is up). Smite/Flash all the way. I don't see how teleport helps you get back into a teamfight after you've died because it's very unlikely that the teamfight will still be going after the ~40 second death timer runs out. That is a legit strategy in HoN where you can instantly buy back after you die and TP in right away though.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1070629 Huge Morgana buffs. Also, I think people need to get their decisionmaking/priorities on a macro-level straightened out. "I just went there cause everyone else did" is a really annoying excuse, especially when it pertains to losing a tower to a split push because the entire team felt it was necessary to gank a solo Xin (and then fail because he has wards up). The same thing about lane pushing in HoN applies to LoL; Don't AoE down creep waves unless you're deliberately pushing down a tower, or if your own shit is getting pushed in. Creeps clashing near your tower is a good thing at almost any point in the game, as it gives you safe, free farm. Similarly, if a carry is farming a lane in midgame, supports just need to go do something else (farm neutral creeps, defend another lane, ward, gank etc.) instead of hanging around like a pocket medic in TF2, or worse, AoEing the creeps. After winning a teamfight or getting a succesful gank, taking a tower is *always* a bigger priority than taking Baron or Dragon. Enemy losing towers = More map control for you, which in turn gives you the opportunity to take Baron or Dragon without even needing to win a teamfight prior. And again, Teleport is just a crutch to cover up for poor sense of timing/map awareness on 90% of the champions. The other 10% are gimmicky sidepushers like Yi, where it actually is justified. By picking Teleport you are either giving up your imbalanced panic button escape spell (Flash), or just severely gimping your ganks/lane power by not picking Ignite/Exhaust. Sure, you can justify teleport by saying that if you get low you can just go back to base and teleport back instantly, but by doing that you're already assuming that you're going to lose the lane and will have to go back to base early. Alternatively you can just WIN the lane by killing the shit out of your enemies and THEN backing to buy your 10 minute BF Sword because you had such great farm and got fed. Also, on Gold vs. Sustainability/Wards. Consider that every ward/potion you buy will pay for itself at least twofold. 3 Health Potions= 600 Health = 105 Gold = ~5 creeps = roughly one creep wave. In early through midgame, if you lose 600 health you will generally have to go back to base which causes you to miss out on way more than a single creep wave, even with Teleport up. Similarly, a single mana potion will give you the ability to cast at least two more spells, which is often enough to get a succesful gank going, so it will often pay for itself through assist/kill gold. Finally, a SINGLE ward gives you the ability to push out quite a bit farther because of the vision, which in turn translates into more creeps you can safely farm. If you're able to get three creeps because of the ward, it has already paid for itself. Basically what I'm saying is; buy wards and potions as long as you have inventory space and gold left.

Too funny to not post. Also, from the sounds of it they'll mostly be nerfing Fiddlesticks AP ratios ("slightly lowering the numbers"), so his early game should be pretty much unaffected. I've been going back to Heroes of Newerth again recently, and we actually did get a pretty noob-friendly group last time so if anyone wants to try it out now that it's F2P, I'm totally up for that. Ingame name is Tensei.

Looks like Fiddles is getting hit by the nerfstick.

Prophet, this isn't meant as criticism or anything, but I really disagree with you on the idea that Rammus isn't an initiator. I've been playing him a lot recently, and I've pretty much singlehandedly won teamfights with powerball+ flash into their carry, then taunting them and popping shield. That's about 4 seconds worth of disables on their carry, and if your team knows what's up that's almost a guaranteed win. Most enemy teams will focus you, but your shield will be up so you should survive, and if not, they will have wasted a shitton of spells on you. I might have a few replays that I could post of it if LoLrecorder didn't mess up. In other news, just played Vladimir for the first time in a real game, and he kicks huge amounts of ass. He plays very similarly to Soul Reaper in HoN, but has way better sustainability on account of being a manaless caster. The trade-off is that he doesn't have the kind of burst SR gets on his ult, but his passive makes him naturally tanky (you get bonus HP based on the amount of AP you build and vice versa), so he can outlast a lot of things.

I play a shitton of custom games with bots to optimize my jungling routes, and also to get a feeling for a heroes skills if I haven't played them before. At least the experience from that does translate to 'real' games though.

I'm gonna assume that the people you get queued up to play bot games with usually play bot games exclusively. That's how you sometimes get to play with people who are completely terrible despite being level 30ish. Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hPU9Ru1ftw

Minimizing your death count pretty much just depends on your ability to pick fights and knowing when to get out. If you're getting that many assists you're definitely contributing to teamfights so it's not like dying a lot is that much of a problem, but as a champion like Trundle you do actually want some decent farm to be a good AD/offtank. Towers and inhibitors don't really count because they require you to land the last hit on them to show up in your score. You can push down plenty of towers without actually destroying any of them yourself so that statistic is a bit misleading. Also, if you're in a pub game, just steal kills, especially if people are complaining.

Just had an intensely dumb hour long game that convinced me that Heimerdinger is a complete and total trash-tier champion whose only 'quality' is delaying his defeat as long as possible. I was solo mid as Morgana vs. Heimerdinger and literally all he could do was just spam his dumb turrets in a poor attempt to push the lane. All it took for me was to land my skillshot to ruin him. I couldn't help other lanes because he would always be back just in time to spam enough turrets and the lane would get pushed in if I left. I was level 17(!) when I FINALLY could leave the lane after I managed to kill his tower. The game then went on hugely in our favor in terms of k/d, but even taking down a single enemy tower was a several minute undertaking. Heimerdinger did literally nothing in teamfights in terms of DPS, his only purpose seemed to be destroying the creep waves asap as they pushed. What a terribly designed champion.

had me in stitches.

The only Borderlands song that stood out as more than just background fluff is the intro song, which AFAIK is licensed. So yeah.

paging sixto to thread but yeah i'll probably be getting this, as if there aren't enough fun games coming out in the near future.

I use different rune setups than suggested, and I still manage to do it (albeit at pretty low health) without a leash, so if you do get a leash you end up with a lot more health, double buff, and you'll be ready to gank. You're right in the sense that it's probably impossible to do with the runes he suggests, but the route itself is very much doable. I use a mix of attack speed/armor penetration reds, a health and an armor penetration quint, armor yellows and mana regen blues. E: Just had some real games with the build, it's actually tons of fun. I went 10/3/10 the last game and had a shitton of succesful early ganks (especially on the pushed up solo lane at top). Because of Powerball's massive speed boost enemy heroes have a very hard time getting away once they've blown their flash.

I just tried Rammus jungle as per this guide (Chaox plays for one of the top teams in the game, so I trust the top guides from solomid a lot more than from mobafire) and it feels really solid. He clears the jungle almost as fast as Amumu, and with a leash on blue he has enough HP after the clear to gank right away. His auto-attack damage with a cloth armor is at like ~80 because of his passive, which is higher than a lot of other junglers, and Powerball/Defensive Curl clear camps really quickly after you get Blue.

It takes some getting used to because there's a shitton of skills that can easily hit stuff two screens away, in addition to the camera being closer, the map being bigger, and the whole pace being a lot faster. It's still a lot of fun though and I wouldn't mind playing with some new people who want to give it a try. Also, Prophet, I feel like Flash is way more of a staple summoner spell than Ghost. Ghost would be better if the map really just consisted of three lanes, but there are so many times where Flashing over a wall will save you where Ghost wouldn't have helped at all. Ghost is slightly more helpful when you're chasing or when you already have an innate blink, but on the vast majority of characters Flash is a better option. Especially initiators benefit from Flash way more because it allows you to instantly jump in if the enemy team clumps up and disable like 3 champions at once. If a team sees an Alistar running in they can spread out, focus him down or kite him before he even gets close, but with Flash he doesn't need to worry about that at all. I also don't see the point in Teleport on Rammus of all champions because his powerball provides him with very good map mobility already. The solution to having a character that can't farm much is to buy up a few Gold per 10 sec items (Heart of Gold, Philosopher's stone), not teleporting to lanes that your carry should be farming. Most Rammus guides actually suggest Smite/Flash on him and play him as a Jungler. Ignite actually counters healing by cutting it by 50% and the mastery grants you bonus AP when it's on cooldown. It's basically like an additional nuke earlygame, and it actually helps a ton in lategame against lifesteal/regen dependent champions too.

I don't think Ghost should really be compared to Exhaust but more to Flash. Usually you want Flash over Ghost on a champion, even if they already have an innate flash (Corki, Akali, Ezreal) though it's more up to preference at that point. Overall Ghost lasts longer and works better for chasing, but Flash lets you escape through walls. Katarina doesn't really need Flash because she can Shunpo to just about everything (including wards) on a pretty short cooldown, so I go with Ghost/Exhaust or Ghost/Ignite. Champions like that definitely want Ignite for maximum damage output. I don't see any reason to run Clarity over Ignite on Anivia because you'll have plenty of regen with mp regen/5 runes and an early tear/catalyst.

Let's talk summoner spells. I think Flash/Ignite or Flash/Exhaust covers about 90% of the champions (for AP and AD heroes respectively), minus junglers. CV is way overrated at pub level, especially if you're only going to use it for bush control (which can be done way cheaper, for 75 gold). CV, and pure support champions in general are great at a higher level where you can use it to supplement wards to maintain awareness of the enemy jungler, while babysitting an AD carry in the bot lane. Soloing or Babysitting a tank with a pure support is a waste of a champion slot, just like how passing up Ignite for CV ironically makes you give up a lot of lane control because you're way less of a threat. I never see people buying enough wards to justify running CV in addition to it. Seriously, they're only 75 gold, and you'll almost always have more than that left if you're back to base to buy items. The only champion where I take CV every time is Lux, not for it's map awareness utility, but for the synergy with every one of her skills. Teleport is kinda iffy because in a lot of cases you can just be smart about blue pill timing so your tower doesn't get pushed while you're back to base. It has it's place in certain push strats though. If you ever feel like you need Clarity you're probably not managing your mana well enough (i.e. don't use skills on creeps, unless they have some kind of mana/energy return component and they're specifically designed to aid lasthitting) Heal/Revive/Fortify etc. should be obvious. But yeah, I think Exhaust/Ignite are almost as important as Flash, because if you're in a 1v1 situation where the enemy has either of those, and you don't, you will most likely be killed.

What do you mean, miss it? Plenty of people still play it, you can just go download Garena and play it again.

Thread necromancy, but totally justified, because: http://www.dota2.com/ Holy shit. Valve is taking this very seriously.

Fortify/Teleport All AD All mid strategy is a failure.

Has everybody stopped playing this or something? I haven't had anything but solo queue for the last two days.

Yeah while '3DS' is a neat name for it, it's really hard to convince people that hardwarewise, it's actually a new generation in handheld gaming rather than a slight upgrade along the lines of DS-> DSi.