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

[relyanCe]

In light of my lackluster performance on Tuesday (only won lane 1/3 games), I have been watching toplane players and reading up on toplane strategy basically non-stop at work. Gonna practice a fair bit tomorrow if I manage to secure the time. I'll also be available for Saturday practice.

Toplane is not my strongest role, and I'm still rusty in general, but I should be back up to my S3 skill level soon.

[zircon]

Nice! Insofar as tops go, I do think Elise and Yasuo are solid. However, neither of them has strong, reliable AOE disruption. IF we end up with an assassin jungler like Nocturne or Shaco, we need a top who can get in the enemy team and disrupt... Shyvana, Mundo and Wukong are current top tier choices. But I also think Lee Sin, Trundle, and Malphite are pretty effective too for their AOE & CC. If you go Elise/Yasuo our jungler needs to be someone like Wukong or Shyvana that can do massive team disruption,.

I'm also thinking we might consider a lane swap with Koriantor and SkyRider. Sky is a strong jungler and Koriantor said he tends to play support. Right now, and again this is just my opinion, I think the strongest junglers are Lee Sin, Jarvan IV, Xin, Vi, Shyvana, Mundo. Udyr, Trundle, Fiddles, Voli, Zac are decent as well. Not as big a fan of Noc/Shaco since they tend to be really squishy and don't deal much aoe damage (Fiddles is squishy too but he is exceptionally good at surprise ganks, has good CC, and huge AOE)

On the support side, I really prefer Leona & Thresh supports. Blitzcrank is good too if you can get reliable hooks. If you can't, it's problematic. Other good supports IMO are Nami and Lulu for their safety and team utility. I am not as big a fan of Sona, Soraka, Janna in this meta. Taric is solid but doesn't offer the AOE CC and pressure of some others. Not a fan of Annie support either as she gets bursted down fast.

[Koriantor]

Nice! Insofar as tops go, I do think Elise and Yasuo are solid. However, neither of them has strong, reliable AOE disruption. IF we end up with an assassin jungler like Nocturne or Shaco, we need a top who can get in the enemy team and disrupt... Shyvana, Mundo and Wukong are current top tier choices. But I also think Lee Sin, Trundle, and Malphite are pretty effective too for their AOE & CC. If you go Elise/Yasuo our jungler needs to be someone like Wukong or Shyvana that can do massive team disruption,.

I'm also thinking we might consider a lane swap with Koriantor and SkyRider. Sky is a strong jungler and Koriantor said he tends to play support. Right now, and again this is just my opinion, I think the strongest junglers are Lee Sin, Jarvan IV, Xin, Vi, Shyvana, Mundo. Udyr, Trundle, Fiddles, Voli, Zac are decent as well. Not as big a fan of Noc/Shaco since they tend to be really squishy and don't deal much aoe damage (Fiddles is squishy too but he is exceptionally good at surprise ganks, has good CC, and huge AOE)

On the support side, I really prefer Leona & Thresh supports. Blitzcrank is good too if you can get reliable hooks. If you can't, it's problematic. Other good supports IMO are Nami and Lulu for their safety and team utility. I am not as big a fan of Sona, Soraka, Janna in this meta. Taric is solid but doesn't offer the AOE CC and pressure of some others. Not a fan of Annie support either as she gets bursted down fast.

To be fair, I said I tend to play everything

I think with the tanky meta, running an assassin jungler isn't the wisest decision. It's the ones with gap closers and CC that'll be more useful. I definitely think my Noc choice was a mistake from indecision . I'm comfortable running Malph, J4, Amumu, and Fiddle in the jungle. I might try improving with Mundo. I've played with him a bit, but not enough to compete with at the moment.

I'm terrible with the hook champions like Thresh and Blitz, and no experience with Lulu. However, I love me some Leona play. I'm pretty comfortable with Taric. I really like Nami, but I don't own her yet. I can pick her up though. Maybe try a few games running bot and see how it goes?

On another note, I made a google spreadsheet for our champion pool. This is similar to what my crew and I use to plan for ranked 5s. If you guys could fill the champs you own under your color and type which ones you favor, I think it'll help.

Last night I won a promo series and skipped a division. So that's cool.

[k-wix]

On the support side, I really prefer Leona & Thresh supports. Blitzcrank is good too if you can get reliable hooks. If you can't, it's problematic. Other good supports IMO are Nami and Lulu for their safety and team utility. I am not as big a fan of Sona, Soraka, Janna in this meta. Taric is solid but doesn't offer the AOE CC and pressure of some others. Not a fan of Annie support either as she gets bursted down fast.

I need to introduce you to Support Mundo.

[SkyRiderX]

I agree with Zircon. I think next time we might try swapping and letting me stroll in the jungle a bit. If things dont work out so well I'll just stick to support. We're still getting comfortable in our roles so anything is up to change still xD

[Brushfire]

If you guys want a stream commentator...

[relyanCe]

I'll finish mine when I get on my desktop later today. Doing it on my laptop would be nightmarish due to only having a trackpad :l

EDIT: Finished my list. Also, HOLY FUCK ZAC TOP IS SO STRONG RIGHT NOW

Edited February 1, 2014 by relyanCe

[zircon]

Been playing some Graves lately... 3 for 3 with him. With the new super aggressive bot meta, he actually works pretty well. Thresh or Leona hook/stun is basically a death sentence at level 3+, and definitely at 6+. That being said, I haven't had an "average" game with him yet where I go even on K/D; my games have all involved a snowballing lead. He might be another solid option.

[Koriantor]

Graves and anyone with CC is a great combination. I LOVE playing Graves with a Leona, blitz, or thresh support. Taric is another solid pick for graves. My friend and I duo Graves-Maokai a lot and it seems to work out really well. Janna is especially deadly with her AD boost on her shield. Janna-Graves can trade some insane burst and take minimal damage.

It's really funny Graves when the enemy engages on Graves and he just unloads his full combo. With the right support (like Leona or Thresh), he can still win a fight, even if they engage on him. Plus his burst scales so well off of AD that if he gets a little ahead it goes a long way for his damage. People don't expect how much damage Graves can dish out.

I find he doesn't do so hot against people who outrange him like Cait ( Especially Cait. Cait is murder to play against as Graves), MF, or Sivir (Her spell shield is annoying. Soaks up half of his burst). Haven't played much against Draven as Graves so I can't say. He'd be a difficult one I think because he outranges graves and hits like a Draven (hard). He's decent against Jinx, and Lucian is tricky to play against because of his mobility.

People don't think about it very often, but blue buff on graves is insane. He can pressure lanes really easily with his buckshot and can be hyper aggressive with his skills. A graves with a bit of a lead and blue buff can demolish lanes.

All and all I think Graves is best when you grab a CC support, and not picked against Caitlyn or Sivir.

[prophetik music]

Graves and anyone with CC is a great combination. I LOVE playing Graves with a Leona, blitz, or thresh support. Taric is another solid pick for graves. My friend and I duo Graves-Maokai a lot and it seems to work out really well. Janna is especially deadly with her AD boost on her shield. Janna-Graves can trade some insane burst and take minimal damage.

graves is kinda tanky early anyways, so having taric's shatter bonus on him is crazy. you can get 80 or 90 armor in lane very eariy-on if taric maxes shatter first...levels 4-5 he's basically unpokeable if he starts with dorans into lifesteal.

[zircon]

Yo Relyance + Koriantor! Where you guys at?

[Koriantor]

I'm on a week long journey through the mountains in Nepal tracking down a rogue terrorist organization that stole my lunch from the breakroom fridge.

Why? Where are you?

[zircon]

OCR Heroes is currently ranked Silver IV with a record of 4-2. Not too bad! I hope everyone is having fun, btw - I sure am. It's much more fun than solo queue, and I enjoy being able to communicate with actual humans, as opposed to a bunch of potatoes with mice & keyboards.

Jeff, any thoughts on dealing with Gragas as our midlaner? Can we let go of a ban on him as necessary (i.e. to put on Vi instead?) Mundo & Shyvana are scary, Mundo a little moreso, but at least they don't have 3/4 screen initiations with unlimited sticking power...

[kitty]

The only viable pick I know how to play against Gragas is Ahri. Orianna also can go head to head with him, but I don't play her as well as Ahri and nowhere near as good as Annie. I can learn to play her relatively quickly though, I think.

[zircon]

Gotcha. We could also try running an unorthodox comp to deal with that, like AD mid for example.

BTW, against that team we lost to tonight, I looked up the players... ALL of them were Platinum in Season 3, with the exception of their Thresh, who was Diamond in S3. LKS scores across the board of 1900+ prior to reset. I'm very proud that we put up such a good fight, and only lost primarily due to some mechanical mistakes, as opposed to being crushed in lane. It could have gone either way pretty easily.

To put it in perspective our strongest player (Jeff) was at about 1900 ELO in S3, while the rest of us are in the 1400-1500 range. So, that was a pretty enormous skill difference on paper, yet the game was actually pretty close.

[kitty]

Yeah I peaked just above 1900 and fell back to something like 1897.

In regards to the unorthodox comp, Caitlyn is a safe pick against Gragas due to range and her E. But I won't be killing him and he can still kill me with Flash Ult Q E. Wukong might do well against him but the Barrel Q from Gragas makes it an even trade unless it's down.

EDIT: The most obvious counter to Gragas is to play him lol.

Edited February 5, 2014 by kitty

[SkyRiderX]

If all those guys were plat and diamond then I think we did very well and that OCR Heroes can aim pretty high in terms of ranking xD

We've got a solid team and more importantly we've got a team we enjoy being around and have good communication with.

[BardicKnowledge]

On dealing with Gragas, I think that putting an AD mid is the best option. In addition to what Jeff said, Ezreal also has the range and movement options needed to survive. The only way you're going to kill Gragas though is to run Zed or Yasuo mid (windwall + dashing probably makes him the better choice) and give them enough jungle support to get the job done.

[The Derrit]

gragas is also dealt with very well by lissandra. stops his dash with w and can outmaneuver him in fights.

just throwing that out there

also throwing out that i'm available to play support for team ocr when one is needed

[zircon]

There are a couple problems with AD carry mid, UNLESS you run a disruptive/kill bot lane. For example, having Cait or Ez mid can work, as long as you have a strong kill lane bottom, and not a 2x ADC comp. The issue is that champs like Caitlyn and Ez simply do not have the same ability to gank from mid as a traditional AP mid, or AD assassin mid. Also, they lack other strengths such as high burst damage, AOE poke, CC utility, and so forth.

If we wanted to run an AD carry mid I would run something like Leona/J4 bot, an AP top like Cho'gath or Zac, and then an AP/CC jungler like Amumu, Fiddlesticks, or Malphite.

[Seven]

Gragas is definitely kinda overbalanced. Reliable AOE poke/waveclear, damage reduction with sustain, low cooldown mobility and huge AOE displacement.

I've actually experimented with some Nasus mid against Gragas (and LeBlanc). Granted it's not the most reliable pick because he is banned often, but with the AOE magic damage reduction in masteries it is very hard for them to push you out of lane without blue buff or a gank. Gragas will push naturally if he harasses, so all you have to worry about is CSing under tower. The main problems with the matchup are that you have a low chance of killing Grag without a high-pressure jungler gank (Like Elise or Lee) and don't have as much roam potential without TP.

Generally I go 0/23/7 masteries. Once you get a Spirit Visage you heal 100+ per Q, and at that point they have zero chance of killing you 1v1.

[prophetik music]

that's a unique pick against him. can't say i expected that.

i've seen two AP nasus players the last few games. is he coming back? i've wanted to try him but can't fathom throwing that hard if he turns out to be a giant lemon.

[SkyRiderX]

Nasus was recently nerfed which sent him back into mid-tier champs. Riot HAD buffed his range on all abilities PLUS bonus range when ulting but they took all that away so now he's ok again but still scales well like he always has.

@TheDerrit - If you want to join OCR's LoL team "OCR Heroes" please just shoot me a PM that you're interested and I'll help you from there. Thank you.

[Seven]

Nasus, in my opinion is an extremely safe pick for top lane and a niche pick mid. The only melee champ that I've found difficult for Nasus (accounting for Silver to low/tilt Plat skill level) is Jax. Riven and Renekton are supposedly hard for him but most people who play those champs tend to get antsy and make huge mistakes and take alot of creep or tower damage. Kennen, Teemo, Swain and especially Kayle can be difficult (Kayle particularly, extremely faceroll).

The range nerfs on Wither were actually pretty huge (and necessary). Granted, I don't have any experience in Ranked 5s but in solo queue I still love the amount of pressure he applies just by being picked. RIP in peace if they pick something like Shen, Zac, or Singed against Nasus, you'll get to farm your Q all day for free. The key to making tough matchups much easier is to use your first TP into lane to come back with an early chainvest/negatron or kindlegem and lots of potions. Also, tell your jungle to ignore your lane unless your lane opponent is someone that can actually be ganked efficiently (IE: not Riven, Renekton, Shyv etc) or to counteract an incoming tower dive.

Edit - AP Nasus is troll, but it can be effective and is very funny. Farmed Lich Bane Qs are something to see haha.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Seven

[zircon]

There are some problems with Nasus though. First of all, if they pick ranged tops like Kayle or Teemo (as you said) he can be shut down pretty readily. Secondly, he doesn't have a lot of presence earlier in the game. He has single-target soft CC and (mostly) single target damage. No gap closers, dashes, escapes, etc. He CAN be ganked, and he doesn't have the mobility to deal with it.

Later in the game, he can become strong, sure. But he's not an unstoppable god either. Again, unlike other strong top lane picks, he has no ability to quickly get out of a fight. If he commits, he can be kited quite readily since outside of flash, he can't close the gap. Compare that to Riven, Renekton, Shyvana, Mundo, Tryndamere (etc) who can either mitigate CC or close the gap very quickly and attack at range.

I think he's a *solid* top pick but not a really safe one. Safe would be someone like Cho'gath. It's almost impossible to lose top lane as Cho. At worst you farm at tower, which he is exceptionally good at. You'll always be useful as a CC bot even if you somehow get behind, whereas Nasus with no farm is garbage.