League of Legends: I finally updated the player list in the OP!

[Dexie]

I've yet to test it myself, but apparently Tiamt works great on Shyvana. It procs on both hits of her Q, then in dragon form it procs on everything in the cleave.

Go figure, the one champion that Tiamat works on is the dragon.

[BardicKnowledge]

Just theorycrafting here, but it sounds like a standard Irelia-style build would work. Triforce, Wit's End, Wriggle's, Frozen Mallet/Warmog's + Atma's...

I'm no longer a fan of Triforce on Irelia, just fyi. Wriggles into either Wit's End (against casters) or Madred's Razors. On Dominion, skip to Kitae's Razor and Lightbringer afterwards -- Sword of the Divine as a Jax counter on both maps.

Triforce only if you are coming up short on health, imo.

[zircon]

Well, with Wriggle's + Merc Treads alone (plus flat armor yellows and MR/level reds) you're already looking at 80-90 armor and MR by level 10 or so. That's pretty good for survivability, combined with your natural tenacity, sustain and passive. So you just want more offense at this point, and Triforce gives you a ton of that, plus a really good buildup. I do like Wit's End too, and I guess against a caster-heavy team you would want to get that very quickly. But Madred's...? I'm not sure it makes sense unless you have another attack speed item first, as it doesn't add much damage in and of itself and is surprisingly expensive.

[The Derrit]

i just went merc's -> malady -> frozen mallet -> the end of the game but after that was thinking about a last whisper or something like that. malady also gives the slight bump to your otherwise mostly damage-less fireball plus the magic resist debuff for your friends

edit: also yeah dexie i thought about doing that my first game i was looking through items and was like 'hmm... other than the waste of mana regen that could kinda work'

[Vilecat]

I forgot if she's AD or AP, but building her partly like Akali, Yi or Tryn would surely work well.

I've been trying Graves since he's free this week. I sometimes wish his E was like Cait: auto-tumbles in the cursor's direction instead of an arrow.

[Dexie]

I forgot if she's AD or AP, but building her partly like Akali, Yi or Tryn would surely work well.

She's weird. Her Q has an AD ratio. Her W has an AD ratio but does magic damage, like Yorick before they redesigned him. E and R both have solid AP ratios.

[Bleck]

I've been trying Graves since he's free this week. I sometimes wish his E was like Cait: auto-tumbles in the cursor's direction instead of an arrow.

turn on smart casting

[The Derrit]

AD is more important though imo because you need high AS for ult/better abilities and having a high AS with no power behind it is kind of a waste

[eternal Zero]

So far my success with Shyvana has been with:

Berserkers, Wriggles, Wit's End, Bloodrazor, Sunfire, Force of Nature, replace Wriggles with either Phantom Dancer, Guinsoo, or Guardian Angel. Replace Berserkers with another Phantom Dancer if you replaced Wriggles with Phantom Dancer. Even with rough starts I've gone at least 2:1 KDR and have been effective in team fights. Also I run Flash/Teleport. I really dislike Ignite on almost every hero.

Also there's no reason to run a lot of AD to make AS useful if you go with on-hit items. Like I said before I actually tried her you build her almost like you'd build Riven. You just expect to do hybrid damage instead of purely AD so that opens up more builds.

[zircon]

Yeah, that's the impression I got from her too. Seems like a fun champ. Why don't you like Ignite? At first I wasn't a big fan either, but for some top and mid picks it helps you seal the deal. I used to think Exhaust was almost always better, but the issue I had with it was that champions with Flash or other blinks/gap closers were able to escape even with it on. Riven is a good example. She's like a greased eel and sometimes it is preferable to have Ignite to finish champs like that off.

Also I picked up LeBlanc recently and I've won nearly all my games with her. Her burst is just unbelievable and her ult is amazing too. As far as I can tell she really dominates most mid champs because she can harass safely 99% of the time (silence + built in defensive/offensive blink nuke.) She's tough to gank too between the blink and the passive. I suppose the only problem is that later on, she is not going to be able to pick away at a glob of enemies unless you have people on your team that can initiate hard and/or significantly distract attention. Otherwise an assassin can get in on you even after you escape.

[Bleck]

Ignite's only useful against big healers; the meatiest part of it is how it reduces healing. If you're just using it to tack on extra damage, you could probably stand to evaluate your ability to gauge how much damage you can do/your opponent can take from attacks.

[The Author]

I think I'm in love with Galio.

A tank with a reasonable damage output and support role... I'm in paradise.

[eternal Zero]

Ignite's only useful against big healers; the meatiest part of it is how it reduces healing. If you're just using it to tack on extra damage, you could probably stand to evaluate your ability to gauge how much damage you can do/your opponent can take from attacks.

Pretty much this. Whenever the extra damage from ignite would have gotten the kill that means you had to do one more round of harass before jumping in and killing them. Exhaust also will give you this extra damage as it reduces both armor and MR. The few heroes I run ignite on are spellcasters with lengthy cooldowns who are required to get in close like LeBlanc or Annie. Casters like Cass and Xerath I tend to run either Ghost/Flash or Flash/Teleport.

Also on another forum I was asked for my full Shyvana build. Figured I'd crosspost it here since you guys got part of it already.

Item order: Berserkers, Wriggles, Wit's End, Bloodrazor, Sunfire, Force of Nature, replace Wriggles with either Phantom Dancer, Guinsoo, or Guardian Angel. Replace Berserkers with another Phantom Dancer if you replaced Wriggles with Phantom Dancer.

Runes: ASPD reds, HP/level yellows, ASPD blues, Movespeed quints.

Masteries are: 14, 0, 16

Summoners are: Flash, Teleport

Skill order is: WQE, max W, max Q, max E. Don't skip ult.

Last 7 games (all of my Shyvana games) had 2 losses with my worst score being 1-2-1 (total wash of a game) and my best score being 21-5-13 with the average being around 10-4-10. All games were played solo top and three of those games it was 1v2.

And here's my way of fighting against Shyvana:

Be really aggressive when her rage meter is mid to low because withou dragon form she's just vanilla and can't output aoe damage. Keep her down early because just building her with my build of Wriggle, Wit's, Bloodrazor/Sunfire she excels at taking objectives while being really hard to kill or deal with 1v1. Nobody deals with a triple strike of Bloodrazor very well. In teamfights you need to cc her to death or focus her down. Most of the time I find myself launching into fights with 90 or so rage to dragon midfight and turn the tides. If she can't do that then she's dead with a full rage bar gone to waste. She's not a carry or a primary damage dealer but she's still a threat. Treat her like you would Xin or Riven.

[The Derrit]

I think I'm in love with Galio.

A tank with a reasonable damage output and support role... I'm in paradise.

if you build mr runes and rush a chalice you'll have some of the highest ap in the game for lv 2-5, when i played with people who didn't care as much i would galio mid, and i'd lane against annies and brands and out-damage them in harass, destroy their cs and pretty much cripple their ap carry

galio is more or less my best character at this point i think so it takes some experience but you get pretty unkillable as long as their entire team isn't like, yi/xin etc.

[Dexie]

Been playing a lot of AP Miss Fortune lately. Normal games, of course.

She's not as good as AD, but it's fun catching people off guard with it that build armor against her. She absolutely rips apart people without MR with her E and R.

Her Mafia skin is pretty awesome too. I hope they add new gun sounds to it like they did Gangster Twitch.

Hope they fix her walking animation though. The new one is pretty lame.

[Dexie]

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/inside-design-summoner-spells-and-season-two

League of Flash is going bye bye.

[eternal Zero]

A rare occurrence of Riot going in the right direction.

[Dexie]

Knowing Riot though they'll overnerf it and we'll never see it be used again.

Then they'll make a new Annie skin.

[eternal Zero]

Yup. Though...if promote ends up being useful in top solo I can totally see teams running more smites for objectives as well as countering promoted creeps which could be neat. You thought 3x Wriggle 1x Smite was bad wait until you have 3 smites. The fastest dragons and big fights at Baron at 15 mins to see who gets it. The potential to have a less laning phase oriented game? That's exciting! Granted Dominion had the potential to be super awesome but in the end is just a flash of brilliance that gets old kinda fast.

[BardicKnowledge]

Yup. Though...if promote ends up being useful in top solo I can totally see teams running more smites for objectives as well as countering promoted creeps which could be neat. You thought 3x Wriggle 1x Smite was bad wait until you have 3 smites. The fastest dragons and big fights at Baron at 15 mins to see who gets it. The potential to have a less laning phase oriented game? That's exciting! Granted Dominion had the potential to be super awesome but in the end is just a flash of brilliance that gets old kinda fast.

Have you played Dominion since the rebalance to losing team advantage? It is now much better, and there is at least one rebalance to that system incoming. It's got a lot of potential; were I Riot, I'd get a Dominion tourney organized to highlight the unique mode.

More on the topic of the rebalanced spells:

I really like the fact that Heal is going to be good -- hopefully they don't overbalance it, as that will encourage even more defensive play. Cleanse improvement makes it viable for squishy carries (I see Vayne running it at the very least), while Ignite will no longer see much use (since the effect can be purged; beating QSS with it was useful on big regen chars).

Ignite receives a pretty substantial nerf now that there's a way to purge it -- I see its use dropping on heroes that don't rely on the extra 10 AP (Annie will probably keep it around).

The gold standard will no longer be Exhaust/Flash at the very least. I predict Ghost to be a new standard on most heroes, as mobility remains highly prized, no matter how you go about getting it. My guess for a remaining spot is as follows:

(Squishy) AD Carry: Cleanse

Hybrid/Tanky DPS: Exhaust

AP Carry: Promote

Support: Heal if lacking a heal spell, otherwise (Janna) Promote

Tank: Flash+Heal (they don't need Ghost to chase/run, but need to position exactly)

Jungle: Smite + Heal, stick around forever. I also see the potential for each team to run two Smites, with more constant battles over the buffs as a result.

Clairvoyance will probably go away, being replaced with junglers buying cloth + 3 pots + one ward and counterwarding the enemy red/blue (depending on jungler) to maintain vision of key areas.

[Vilecat]

O hai thar!

[Dexie]

He looks like he's being eaten by Kog'maw.

[prophetik music]

Have you played Dominion since the rebalance to losing team advantage? It is now much better, and there is at least one rebalance to that system incoming. It's got a lot of potential; were I Riot, I'd get a Dominion tourney organized to highlight the unique mode.

More on the topic of the rebalanced spells:

I really like the fact that Heal is going to be good -- hopefully they don't overbalance it, as that will encourage even more defensive play. Cleanse improvement makes it viable for squishy carries (I see Vayne running it at the very least), while Ignite will no longer see much use (since the effect can be purged; beating QSS with it was useful on big regen chars).

Ignite receives a pretty substantial nerf now that there's a way to purge it -- I see its use dropping on heroes that don't rely on the extra 10 AP (Annie will probably keep it around).

The gold standard will no longer be Exhaust/Flash at the very least. I predict Ghost to be a new standard on most heroes, as mobility remains highly prized, no matter how you go about getting it. My guess for a remaining spot is as follows:

(Squishy) AD Carry: Cleanse

Hybrid/Tanky DPS: Exhaust

AP Carry: Promote

Support: Heal if lacking a heal spell, otherwise (Janna) Promote

Tank: Flash+Heal (they don't need Ghost to chase/run, but need to position exactly)

Jungle: Smite + Heal, stick around forever. I also see the potential for each team to run two Smites, with more constant battles over the buffs as a result.

Clairvoyance will probably go away, being replaced with junglers buying cloth + 3 pots + one ward and counterwarding the enemy red/blue (depending on jungler) to maintain vision of key areas.

i still feel that ghost is currently better than flash on all but a few characters (like fiddles or other AOE ult characters), but the nerf to flash actually makes fiddles, annie and other stronger since people can't just flash away from cacaw or tibbers anymore. it hurts characters like leb and shaco who rely on that gap-closing speed to cross huge distances quickly, but characters like amumu, nunu, and galio still get the OSHI- benefits of extra positioning from it without totally getting rid of it.

i am looking forward to the boost to cleanse, though, and i'll be using it a LOT more, especially on characters like malph. it's almost a must for junglers with no gap closing, though - how do you shut down an udyr or xin? you exhaust them. this prevents that basically every time.

i also look forward to 'surge' and promote, both of which will likely become awesome 1v2 lane buffs. i doubt anyone would bring both, but i can see it being very effective early, and with pushing lanes.

[Dexie]

http://gdcvault.com/play/1015033/Designers-are-Human-Too-Causes

A GDC lecture by Zilean about how designers are human and how and why they make mistakes.

He talks about a champion named Omen that never made it into the game. Pretty interesting stuff, I thought.

[zircon]

Definitely excited for Flash nerf. It's just a really stupid spell. When 10/10 players take it at high levels, you know it's incredibly OP. Same with CV, though with that it's more like at least one player per team MUST have it to be competitive.

Thing about the nerf though is that you can't look at it in a vacuum. For example, some people say by nerfing Flash, champions with no gap closer or escape will be a lot weaker, and anybody with a blink/pseudo-blink will become a lot better. But remember, they're buffing other summoner spells. So maybe Ashe can't Flash away if she gets ganked, that might just mean a buffed Heal would be better to save her, or the improved Cleanse. Who knows!