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

[kitty]

League will always be special to me in that I typically had more fun than not. But more importantly, I felt like I was able to have some good times with good friends in it and that I was able to make more friends because of it.

Quitting was a hard decision but I'm glad I did it. I scaled back all my online gaming so I have way more time to do things I want to do like sing and learn guitar, FL studio, or whatever really. I play Diablo 3 occasionally. I'm trying to focus my (light) gaming back to non-grindy co-op or single-player stuff because I generally get more satisfaction of those.

[DragonAvenger]

Hey guys, I was cleaning my house and found a set of codes from PAX East for skins. No idea if they will still work, but whoever wants to try 'em out may get lucky!

Arctic Ops Varus - WWU7DY74FQ4MTR

Riot Ward Skin - RWJN9AM9J23LLJ

Riot Blitzcrank - WWRXY2XVTGLCNK

Arcade Hecarim - WWQ4T3KDHWAHHG

Claimed! Nextly, for cosplaying we got two Pulsefire Ezreal statues. We don't need two, so if someone's willing to pay shipping for it, I'll mail the extra out to you! It's pretty big, like a foot tall. Here's a random link I found online! https://adeliegamers.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/made-it-home.png

First come, first serve on all of these things, good luck!

Edited May 3, 2014 by DragonAvenger

[prophetik music]

they're expired. i already have riot blitz so i tried it out, but it says expired rather than 'you already have this'.

[DragonAvenger]

Ah well, I figured it was worth an attempt.

[prophetik music]

how many champs does everyone have? i checked today and i have 67. i also have 15k IP, but i'm waiting for the new dude to come out to see if i want to get him.

[OceansAndrew]

21! not that many, but i just like to play 3-4 of them anyways

[Koriantor]

I've got me 61 champs of which I play 15 consistently.

[prophetik music]

i primarily jungle or top, but i've got different kits of players that i like in different game modes. like, i love playing kog, twitch, sona (!!!), kayle, and vel'koz in ARAM, but i've only really ever played vel in a real game. yorick's a favorite but i rarely get a comp where i can play him.

i probably play a total of ten consistently.

[Seven]

I own 71, and the ones I play regularly recently are:

ADC - Jinx or Cait

Top - Nasus, Malphite

Mid - ??? (My worst and most random position)

Jungle - Amumu, Udyr

Support - Leona, Thresh, Nami, Lulu

I wish I could refund champs for a percentage of IP back, don't see myself ever touching an overwhelming majority of the others.

[ArmadonRK]

Hey guys, I was cleaning my house and found a set of codes from PAX East for skins. No idea if they will still work, but whoever wants to try 'em out may get lucky!

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.

Nextly, for cosplaying we got two Pulsefire Ezreal statues. We don't need two, so if someone's willing to pay shipping for it, I'll mail the extra out to you! It's pretty big, like a foot tall. Here's a random link I found online! https://adeliegamers.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/made-it-home.png

PMed.

how many champs does everyone have? i checked today and i have 67. i also have 15k IP, but i'm waiting for the new dude to come out to see if i want to get him.

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.

[BardicKnowledge]

A dude from the League general forums -- tempnamesr780978 -- made an excellent list about why the jungler isn't visiting you. Read below, especially if you play jungle yourself, haha.

1) Something else was happening

When I'm jungling my map awareness is excellent, you can autopilot the jungle camps so you stare at the map basically the whole game. When I'm in a lane though, my map awareness shrinks to basically my lane and roughly a screen away from my lane, and from what I can tell my average teammates (Gold IV) have even worse map awareness.

There's like... a whole game going on outside your lane. It's my job to win the game, not your lane.

2) You pushed too far

Hallmark of awful top laners is to push to their tower and die three times in a row, then complain that I'm not ganking. So let me get this straight, you want me to gank Vladimir under his tower at level four... with Amumu? (Actually happened) If you push your lane I'm probably not ganking it, and there's a 0% chance I'm ganking if we're under level 6.

3) You have no health/mana

I've been playing a lot of Udyr lately, and I LOVE ganking top at level 3. If my top laner has any form of CC it's usually free first blood. Know when that's not true? When they got knocked to 15% at level 1 and refuse to back and heal. Three times in the past 48 hours I've gone for a first blood top, my top's been very low, and they've gone in and died when I 100% would have gotten the kill alone. Which brings me to my next point...

4) Because people are stupid

Jungling gives you a very different perspective on the game. I'm gold 4, not great but not awful. You'd think my teammates would have improved, but no not really. People will ping you to gank their lane 100 times, you ping you're coming, and then they don't help you and you die, giving up double buffs. People are very, very, VERY stupid, and a good rule of thumb for gold and below is to only gank when you can kill the dude ENTIRELY BY YOURSELF, with NO help, because that's what's going to happen a lot of the time. Sometimes your teammates are good and you can tell, but your teammates should be assumed to be stupid until proven otherwise.

5) You're getting destroyed without being ganked

This is one people really, really don't seem to understand. Let's say we've got a Ziggs mid, he's down 2 kills and 15 cs at 10 minutes to Ahri.

Ziggs is always going to lose to Ahri 1v1.

If I gank without a countergank, there are a lot of things that can happen. Ziggs might just die, and Ahri escapes. Ziggs and Ahri may both die. Maybe we just kill Ahri and Ziggs lives, but this is not very likely (Under 50%). Most likely scenario is I burn a summoners, which is basically break even.

If we get counterganked, we are probably going to lose a 2v2. Now all my buffs are on them, we probably lose the tower, it's an AWFUL situation.

The expected value of ganking a lane that's getting dumpstered is very low. There is a high chance of catastrophic failure, and a mediocre to bad chance of killing their laner, which really isn't a big deal because that guy is STILL losing his lane. If you're getting wrecked 1v1, the lane is ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT, and all I can really do is keep an eye on it to countergank, or gank the lane when I see their jungler elsewhere. Which brings me to...

6) Because knowing where I am is VERY valuable information

When their jungler ganks you top and you die, you're pissed. Where is my jungle? [All] Moron (Renekton): GG NO JUNGLER

[11:03] Udyr has slain the Dragon

This is an externality to ganking that no one below plat seems to ever think about. If they know where I am, that gives their jungler a tremendous amount of freedom on the rest of the map, ESPECIALLY if they see me top lane. This is another reason I don't want to gank unless I'm pretty sure it's going to work, because when they see me gank that gives their jungler free reign to solo the dragon with flare, gank my other lanes or counterjungle me. The good farmers like Udyr can literally counterjungle half your jungle, take the dragon and then gank a lane in the span of about a minute, and all it takes for that to happen is to see their jungler top.

I'll even go on record saying that past 10 minutes it's sometimes not worth it to gank top even if you're 100% sure the gank will succeed, because what the other jungler can do in response may make it not worth. If that gank fails... yeah...

7) I'm getting counterjungled and no one is helping

Unfortunately still very common in gold 4, with a jungler vulnerable to counterjungling (In my case, Amumu) sometimes you get crushed in your jungle and no one helps you. Now you're in the position where you're very behind, and you can't risk ganking because you need to farm to get back in the game. If you're already one level behind you can't risk getting two levels behind unless you're VERY confident in the gank you're about to make.

There's a minimap in the bottom corner of your screen. If you don't look at it, that can be a reason I didn't gank any lane for a long period of time, and there's nothing I can do about it without your help.

8 ) Because I know you suck

Similar to #4, but not exactly the same. #4 basically means that I assume people are bad until I receive contrary information, and plan to only gank when I am confident I can kill the person by myself. #8 is where I've been watching your lane, and from this I'm positive you're a moron. By 'a moron' I don't mean down 30 cs. I mean you're so bad ganking your lane is going to be harder than if you weren't there at all, and yes this is possible. Ganking a morons lane is useless because they won't carry lategame, and one of the other lanes may. I usually don't say anything, but about once every 3 or 4 games I avoid ganking someones lane the whole game because I have doubts about their ability to breathe.

9) You backed at a stupid time

This drives me so insane, and happens about once a game, usually bot lane. What's happened is there's been a skirmish, both parties are wounded, and my teammates decide to go back. Why is this a bad idea? Because their lane opponents are currently over-extending at 40% life, and their jungler pinged the lane 15 times and is currently running down through river.

Well, I hope the vamp scepter was worth it, cuz you could have had a double kill, but instead you wasted my time.

While we're on the subject of bad times to go back, I'm gonna add in ANY time lategame where your team is all outside the base. I don't care if you have ten thousand gold, stay with your team. I would estimate somewhere around 5~% of my losses are because someone went back, we lost a 5v4 and then they instantly won the game. NEVER GO BACK LATEGAME.

10) You're toxic

Being a jungler is like answering phones for people who call in asking questions about their student loans. I remember the ONLY time I was angry and loud with someone over the phone, and it had to do with me thinking I owed less money than the statement said (I was wrong). I didn't even scream at her, but I definitely raised my voice and I've felt guilty about it for around four years.

Why is it people feel like it's ok to treat the jungler like that, every game? Don't you ever give a jungler **** and then realize wow, he was doing fine, that was my bad. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on junglers. Is there no room for self-reflection?

Jungling is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's one of the easiest ways to climb elo if you're genuinely better than your elo because you have so much impact on the game, and you can win other peoples lanes for them. However, the flip side of that is that you're going to get screamed at EVERY SINGLE GAME until you uninstall and kill yourself, like they keep telling you to.

[Seven]

The only problem with these type of posts is the primary intended audience will never read it. Very well written post, but I think it might actually be more useful for someone trying to learn the ins and outs of jungling as opposed to inbred laners (as Bardic mentioned).

Points #5 and 8 are the most important, especially in the Feral Flare jungle meta. If your top laner is down considerable amounts of CS and/or kills and is just getting pushed around in general, don't waste your time trying to get them back into the game. Get yourself a sub 15-minute Feral Flare and start farming and killing everything afterward.

[prophetik music]

this is a brilliant post. it reinforces what i've said before - often it's not worth ganking a lane after a certain point. if you're in top, you're playing a champ without consistent cc or against a very mobile champ like vi, irelia, or jax, and you give up first blood because of minions or something dumb, i'm not coming top any time soon.

the other thing he didn't reference unfortunately is that another reason that the jungler isn't coming to your lane is because he's babysitting two really, really bad lanes. we've seen this in situations where a top is a singed that's spamming goo and has no mana at five minutes and mid is a ziggs who doesn't know how to use his minefield, or something equally awful. sometimes the jungler just needs to live around a lane until they get back on their feet, which is horrible because it gives the other jungler free reign, but occasionally there's no other option.

[SkyRiderX]

That was a beautiful piece of literature and I completely agree since I main jungling for ranked play xD

[The Derrit]

Honestly while it will never happen I don't see why top river isn't shortened.

Nothing happens in the top half of the map except baron, which isn't even a factor until 15-20 minutes into the game. Having top lane be so far away from the rest of the game isn't really fun, or strategically useful.

[k-wix]

So i just raised to Silver I in solo queue with Xerath support exclusively. It feels like a bit of an accomplishment. I started in Silver V, and it only took me about 2 weeks. I'm easily winning 60-70% of my games with him. If the trends continue I'll be in gold very soon. Haven't lost a promo yet

Support Xerath counters the current support meta so hard right now and no one realizes a thing. He stops Leona, Braum, and Thresh easily and can even stand toe to toe with Morgana and Blitz. The only supports he has trouble with are those that have access to strong healing potential like Sona and Raka. For some reason, they have fallen out of popularity lately in favor of the more aggressive or 'defensive' supports.

Hoping to hit Gold soon.

[prophetik music]

is it just because his poke is so big and annoying?

[k-wix]

is it just because his poke is so big and annoying?

There's a lot of reasons and it varies per matchup, but i'll try to summarize with a few points:

1.) Harassment. It's a big deal for Xerath! You might say - this can work with a lot of champions like Lux or Ziggs but Xerath has a very easy time maintaining his mana, provided you can keep his passive ticking. His cooldowns are short and harass seems constant and unending. It's very easy to punish a support who needs to get in close like Leona and just force her to play on the sidelines, watching helplessly as you harass them both down from afar. Another thing to note is that it's very difficult to hold a turret against Xerath because of his reach and siege potential. You can't just.. hide under your turret with a Xerath floating around and try to farm - he forces you to go back.

2.) His kit works well on the defensive. He can stop big creep waves and pushes; he has respectable disengage tools. Certainly not the best, but his reworked W and E are absolutely great at turning around bad engages or stopping a jungler from ganking. He also has a few tricks to get vision without wards which is always nice in the support game. Diving Xerath under his own turret is usually a bad idea with his stun/slow.

3.) His mid-game potential as a support is terrifying. I feel like Xeraths kit works very well with the items you can build on him towards mid game in the support role. A lot of his abilities do good damage and his Ultimate is just so very nice to have on the offensive. Anytime your involved with a teamfight you can usually pick off a few people who run with your ultimate, and that leads to big pushes and big objectives early.

I guess that's all I can think of for now - Most players tell me i'll get camped by smart junglers, but unless my ADC is flat out bad at positioning, It usually ends well for us. I would recommend banning some of the more mobile/assassin junglers when playing Xerath, Lee Sin and Khazix both spring to mind as being difficult to deal with.

[The Derrit]

tl;dr long range aoe slow, no mana issues with passive, high damage, good stun

don't tell people this i like playing xerath mid. you're going to ruin everything

[Sir_NutS]

Anyone interested in joining my fantasy league?

[Bleck]

Lee Sin and Khazix both spring to mind as being difficult to deal with.

this is just sort of generally true, though

[BardicKnowledge]

Hmm seems like a good idea -- I am going to try this soon...

[ArmadonRK]

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.

[Koriantor]

[Nabeel Ansari]

YUP

YUP YUP YUP

I might start playing more often after this comes out.