ArmadonRK

The benefit of landing the spear is not equal to the difficulty. One way or another, it's an issue. Vision counters Nidalee so hard. Wards prevent her from moving freely around the map and hurling spears from safety. Dodging her spears was always easy with boots, and Banshee's Veil just turned her off entirely. Before the rework, and after. This "no counterplay" bullshit gets spouted way too much, and almost every time it's because people don't ward enough. This is dumb. Every opponent can pressure you off your wave so that you're forced to farm under your turret. Against any champ with a real ultimate, if you don't get a kill before 6, their power spike will shut you down. It's useless to land a spear and take out half their health with your combo, if you're just going to die when you go in because you were already harassed to half health before the fight began. And good luck healing with that mana pool. An early Lich Bane may be good for damage, but you're just gonna dive in and die. If you're lucky, you'll get a kill in the process. Nidalee is now more a cleanup champion than a real assassin. You still want your spears to hurt because you're not going to go in after every one, so there are higher priority items than Lich Bane by far. Ziggs and Xerath can do the nearly the same damage at the same range, with AoE skills on lower cooldowns that aren't blocked by minions. Let's not kid ourselves here, you're never going to land more than one spear. Not with the new hitbox. Passive only applies in brush, max damage spear is 1300 range, empowered Pounce is 700 range, and you no longer have a passive movespeed boost in Cougar form. Doesn't add up, sorry. TL;DR Playing new Nidalee the way new Nidalee was designed to be played, she's still a weak pick.

I agree on the support point. Her traps no longer shred armor, her heal was reduced, her attack speed buff was shortened, and her poke was lessened. All of these things make her a less effective support than she was before the rework. And she was an awful support already. She becomes an all in support with no CC, no tankiness, and no peel. We absolutely won't see her in competitive play because every comp that uses her will want Ziggs instead. (Super-secret sleeper OP replacement: AP Ezreal. Slightly less range, but comparable damage and mobility to old Nidalee. I'm hoping people realize this and he starts to see competitive play, especially with the ADC itemization changes that made him less effective in the botlane.) It's not just the change in her power level, but the fact that she no longer fills the strategic niche that made her competitive.

I've been getting back into League lately, so maybe I'll see you guys online. Nidalee main chiming in. The hitbox change to the spears was good, the old hitbox was pretty messed up. It makes landing spears a lot harder, but coupled with the damage nerf, it's supremely unsatisfying to land a long range spear. I get that a good Nid was annoying to play against before, but she was by no means overpowered. It was an unnecessary rework to what was a fairly well balanced champion with plenty of counter options. That out of the way, the new Nidalee runs with a few interesting ideas, but I feel like it missed the mark in a few ways. I'm gonna talk mainly about AP Nidalee, which is what I play and is now slightly underpowered, though I hear AD Nidalee is a little too powerful atm. I'm not much of a toplaner though, so other people can talk about that. Making her Cougar form available at one would have been a buff to her pre-6, except her kit changes have made her significantly weaker in the early game than before. Her base damages are too low for her to make a significant impact in lane, or roaming. She gets bullied by just about every popular midlaner, and even champions I was surprised to struggle to lane against, like Karma and Kassadin. Everyone outpokes her and out-trades her pre-6. There are two main ways to play her early game: stock up on potions and farm safely, or all in ASAP. If you can get the early assassination off, it takes a lot of pressure off of you. Time to farm freely, lane pressure, map pressure, the works. But you are absolutely at a disadvantage in almost every matchup. Winning your lane requires an unexpected outplay. In fact, every single First Blood I have attained as Nidalee 2.0 has required the use of my Flash. That said, Nidalee gets stronger in the mid game. If you can outfarm the other team, get your power spike before they have a chance to build MR, you can start dealing decent damage with spears, to the squishy ADCs if no one else, and get yourself fed before you fall off to defensive items in the late game. Once you hit three complete items (typically Sorc Shoes + Morellonomicon + Seraph's/Rabadon's/Void Staff) you have an opportunity to build a lead, and with her new assassination potential you can snowball hard enough to carry into the late game. The more fed you are, the slower you fall off as they build defensive items. In summary: Farm safely in the early game, but don't be afraid to Flash for a kill. Build and extend a lead in the mid game, you can snowball pretty hard during this power spike. Close out before the game goes too late, once that ADC gets a Banshee's, you're out of assassination targets. AP Nidalee 2.0 features some cool new mechanics. She's lots of fun, but she's also weaker overall than other AP mids. Whether it's poke or siege or supporting or assassination, specialized champs like Ziggs and LeBlanc and Akali and Kayle do it better. AP Nidalee is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Sorry, but this is not true at all. Only to a no defensive-item squishy, only in the mid game with sufficient damage items, and only at max-range does it do damage that could be described as "crazy", which is maybe 40% health at most. With the hitbox changes, it's almost not worth it to try for those long range spears. Especially because if you land a max range spear, you're out of range even for an empowered Pounce. With no follow-up, that ADC's gonna be back at full after a brief trip to wraiths.

Mind if I paraphrase you, Brandon? Shall we move on from ripping on loops and presets to ripping on remixes and rearrangements? The logical argument for the two is exactly the same. Maybe we should admit that creativity and inspiration and musical craftsmanship are not precluded by using something someone else created as your starting point. If not, we should all start breeding goats right away.

I've been playing again recently, and I have stumbled across my new favorite stat-tracking website: http://wardscore.loltools.net/ That aside, maybe I'll see some of you online, though I play at some odd hours.

I do wish I'd picked up Riot Blitzcrank when he was available. I like the skin better now then I did when it first released. PMed. After a little more than 2 years of League, I'm down to only Sejuani left to obtain. I did purchase a champion bundle when I first started playing, though for the most part I have obtained champs with IP. It does mean I've been pretty short on runes my whole League career (I only recently upgraded from 3 rune pages). Sejuani is gonna be a ways away, though, since I'm down to playing one or two games a week, and likely to spend my IP on more runes before I get around to rounding out my champion pool.

Marty did amazing work for Bungie for 15 years, but we have no idea how easy that relationship was to maintain. No doubt he was an expensive man to keep on the payroll, and most would agree that his talent was well worth it, but it's not hard to imagine that any difficulty working with him, or in negotiating a contract/salary bump with him, would make a board of directors question that value. They can get another composer/audio director for a fraction of the price, with talent and experience, but without the same cachet. Someone easier to work with, and who won't rock the boat, because they are eager to keep their job. Sad to say, it's just business. While I'm upset to see him go, and I think Bungie got what they paid for with Marty - a pre-eminent talent in his field - it's easy to see how a corporate administration would rather cut a few corners instead. That said, this is just my interpretation of rumour and speculation. We may or may not find out what really made this happen.

I totally understand why so many people are "taking a break from" (read as: quitting) League. Hell, I've all but quit myself. I try to play at least one game every few days in the hope that it'll be fun again, but since most of my IRL friends have quit League, solo queuing is, as it has always been, a mostly intolerable experience. A popular streamer recently summed it up quite well: It's the nature of being trapped in a game for at least 20 minutes in even the most toxic/one-sided/frustrating/angering/maddening situations. I just had a game where our toplaner lost lane by a landslide, blamed the rest of the team, abandoned his lane to the 6/0 Tryndamere he alone had fed, leaving him to free farm, complained about everyone else's "feeding", tried to surrender at 20, then immediately left the game when the vote failed 1 to 4. I don't have to put up with that shit in any other game I enjoy, and it's gotten to the point where the game just doesn't feel worth it. I would enjoy playing with the team as a full five man group, but the organizational and scheduling issues have resulted in that not really panning out. In the 4 weeks I was active with the team, that was 8 scheduled practices, we got in maybe 2 full 5-man games? I think there were also 2 games we queued with 4. I think that was on 2 separate days. The 6 other times I logged on to play with OCR Heroes, fewer than 4 people on the team showed up in total, and it didn't seem worth it to play after waiting around 2 or 3 hours for people. I've invested a fair amount into this game, and I don't regret it. When I was playing with friends almost every day, League was a blast. Now that time has past, I think it's time for me to call it quits as well.

The original idea behind the Winter Soldier in the comics is almost certainly derived from those ideas, so why wouldn't those themes and motifs have been inspiration for the movie? If those themes and ideas hadn't been present in the movie, I guarantee we would have had a different villain and a different title. I think people underestimate how much thought goes into the subtext of these stories and scripts. I hardly find these connections tenuous enough to call it "overthinking". Anywho, that's the end of my little rant as a film student/aspiring screenwriter. I thought Silvestri's Avengers score was rather mediocre. I've found most of the MCU scores to be entirely unremarkable. Thor 1 had a couple good tracks, and only one memorable tune, while Thor 2 was similarly solid but unexciting. I remember none of Cap 1, and I felt like Cap 2 was good at the time, though I can't remember a single melody from it to save my life. In my opinion, the only really great MCU score was the first Iron Man. It was catchy, it was memorable, it had character, and it felt to me like quintessential Iron Man.

Having pretty much forgotten about Paine since I last studied him in high school, this is a connection I never would have made myself, so thanks for this interesting tidbit. SPOILERS: It also might have a connection to the Winter Soldier Investigation, which was an attempt to publicize Vietnam war crimes. I don't think there's an extremely solid comparison between the corruption of SHIELD and traditional war crime, but it could be said that both are acts of evil performed in the service of "the greater good", certainly in the eyes of Redford's character and the other heads of HYDRA they were the good guys doing what was necessary. It definitely adds another layer to the film on second thought.

Last I logged in OCR Heroes was marked inactive and hit with LP decay, but I'm glad to see you guys played a game to rectify that. I apologize for being AWOL the last two weeks, but recent health issues had me sidelined, I hope to be back and active in League again ASAP.

More or less what I expected from an MCU movie. Fun, well-acted and well-written. Riddled with plot holes and devices, but so entertaining and engaging that you don't really notice or mind them. Hell, I've forgotten most of them. The allegory was a bit heavy-handed, "zomg drones r nazis!" and "the surveillance-state is fascism!" but I feel it actually served the story well, since Cap was an equally heavy-handed antithesis to the "establishment" that the movie was trying to break down. In fact, "heavy-handed" is how I'd describe the whole movie, but it was not really a bad thing. I find that Winter Soldier pulled off heavy-handed exceedingly well. IMO, Avengers was a more entertaining movie, The First Avenger was a more tightly knit story, and I don't think Marvel can ever recapture the innocent wonder of the first Iron Man, but I really like how they're fleshing out their cinematic universe. I'm particularly excited for how Agents of SHIELD handles the fallout of Cap 2. The show has been good, but not great, meandering along for a while now, and this could just give Agents the kick it needs to start going somewhere.

.7 second cooldown on Q, 2.8s on his W and E, 10s on his ult. With his passive that would be... ... ... Yeah. EDIT: URF Tier List Update Kayle Tier > Everything Else

Ultra Rapid Fire. Just do it. URF Tier List - - - - - Tier 3 (Really Strong): Tryndamere, LeBlanc, Karma, Sivir, Twisted Fate Tier 2 (Unstoppable): Nidalee, Zilean, Morgana, Lux, Garen Tier 1 (Broken): Karthus, Sona, Soraka, Kha'zix, Ahri Tier 0 (LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL): Fiddlesticks Some more URF advice: Teleport is God Tier. Revive or Flash is up to you. Don't take Smite, Barrier, Ignite, Ghost, or anything else, you don't need them. Teleport as soon as the game starts, invade, get an early kill. Wards are not for vision, wards are for teleporting. Try and place sneaky pinks that will last a long time. Solo Dragon ASAP. Solo Baron ASAP. Ignore all objectives. Have fun.

Even in Korea:

I definitely disagree. Lich Bane was blatantly overpowered for a long time, even though no one noticed it. The .75 AP ratio made it better than Rabadon's on many champions. Now it's still quite powerful in the right champions hands. It's still going to be core on TF, Fizz, Ezreal, etc. Not only is Lich Bane still potent with decent base AD values, Lich Bane core champs mostly got buffs to compensate the item nerf. Now I might think twice before building it on mages like Vlad or Ahri, but it's still a ridiculous item that adds a significant AP ratio to your combo/rotation. It's slightly weaker than before, but it's still the Hydra of AP.

I may be the world's worst Rumble, but how could you not love a mech-driving yordle? Looks like we're getting Heimerdinger's VU tomorrow, with Rumble coming up next! http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/champions-skins/skin-preview/hero-fallen-city (For those unaware, Riot stated that Rumble's rig was so bad that he would not get a new skin until he got a Visual Update with a completely rebuilt rig.)

I, too, am logged in and waiting. Though this is becoming a trend...

Heh. As a somewhat frequent Riven player, it's something I've picked up, and I absolutely hate it. I dislike when unintended or edge mechanics become so core to success with a character. (See also: Reasons I prefer Brawl to Melee) I can't count the number of times I've blown a LeBlanc or an Ahri combo because of mistimed casts and animations, so it bothers me that melee champions like Riven have such different animation interactions than their ranged counterparts. So, yeah, animation canceling is good to learn, but I consider it something of an exploit and I honestly hope it gets fixed in some fashion. Not necessarily by removing animation canceling, but my normalizing cast time and animation interaction across champions and abilities. #PettyThingsThatBotherMe

False. We just haven't added each other in-game. :'(

I hate you forever now.

The Team Builder UI is fantastic. It does need a few tweaks at the moment, though, particularly in regards to premades. Right now, if any member of the premade leaves Team Builder, the whole queue is dropped, which is a bother. And though I see how it could potentially cause problems, some option to change roles and champs after the fact would be nice.

That's exactly how I build Lee Sin, because I enjoy playing him as more of a high risk assassin than a play-making tank. It also allows him to scale better into the lategame. I don't think Lee Sin needs much retuning, but I do think his base stats are too high for his kit, and his base damage does make it more enticing to build defensively. That said, Lee Sin is one of the better-balanced champions around, and it's amusing to me that he has taken retune priority over Elise, whose itemization is so bad it hurts.

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

I think everyone just missed the fact that Bleck, Mirby and I were making a joke and poking fun at the history of the doom and gloom attitude where Nintendo is concerned. A classic --the joke--> (you) scenario.