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[Blizzard]

I'd rather have them buff the other carries rather than nefing the good ones. IMO, every character should FEEL overpowered, and I have a feeling that more often than not, Riot sees problem champions and says "better nerf them" rather than "how can we make other champions play better against them?"

I mean, Sivir, Ashe, Kog and Urgot were all nerfed within the past handful of months, which led to the relatively untouched Graves/Ez/Corki becoming more dominant. Honestly, did they change anything about Ezreal before he started becoming popular?

Riot's penchant for the nerf hammer leads to these situations where some champions become extremely viable and popular out of nowhere because Riot nerfed all the other popular alternatives (ex. Rumble, Renekton).

I rather agree with this, but apparently Riot doesn't and presumably there has been a bunch of discussion about it.

Graves had been nerfed 2-4 times previously, but I'm not aware of any buffs to Ez or Corki that made them suddenly become dominating aside from Pulsefire Ezreal (which might have added some slight timing changes that made things better, but presumably people like because he's cool).

I don't like Pulsefire Ezreal because he fires all these lasers and they're nearly silent and then you suddenly realize that 3 of them were autoattacks and you couldn't tell because they weren't a gun like with Graves and didn't make much noise at all, and suddenly you just took 2000 physical damage.

 

[scy]

I guess I'm too used to nerfs that I'm pretty laid back to the whole process. Honestly, I'd rather have small tweaks in both directions rather than bringing up others to the same level. That seems like an invitation to massive power creep. Doing both makes more sense than constantly buffing things.

As for Ezreal, his biggest change was people realizing that a skillshot that ignores minions, deals good damage, and slows attack speed might be good for an ADC v ADC matchup.

That and PFE.

Spoiler

...mostly PFE.

 

[dimb]

I'd rather have them buff the other carries rather than nefing the good ones. IMO, every character should FEEL overpowered, and I have a feeling that more often than not, Riot sees problem champions and says "better nerf them" rather than "how can we make other champions play better against them?"

I mean, Sivir, Ashe, Kog and Urgot were all nerfed within the past handful of months, which led to the relatively untouched Graves/Ez/Corki becoming more dominant. Honestly, did they change anything about Ezreal before he started becoming popular?

Riot's penchant for the nerf hammer leads to these situations where some champions become extremely viable and popular out of nowhere because Riot nerfed all the other popular alternatives (ex. Rumble, Renekton).

Look, it's nice to want to buff everyone but it just isn't reasonable. There is a baseline for where champions should be that many of the AD carries are just above. It's partially why the role is so important right now. It's also an unrealistic amount of work to balance every single champion, and it potentially requires items to be retuned as well. Rumble and Renekton are both in a good place right now following their nerfs, so I don't know why you're bringing them up. Renekton has seen buffs and nerfs in various places, so he doesn't even fit as an example.

Corki, Ezreal, and Graves became as popular as they did because of a meta shift anyways. The mobility they had and the ability to jump walls simply offers them a huge leg up on the competition in many situations.

To be fair, Yorick as a support "makes sense" in the idea of his late game play revolving around his ult.

Yorick doesn't revolve around his late game, and one ultimate isn't enough to justify the presence of someone as a support. There is a necessity for supports to bring CC, and Yorick simply doesn't offer that. His strength is as an unmovable and undying tank who provides some amount of utility to the entire team. He's a rotten support though because he needs to scale to actually be useful. Why would you pick Yorick as a support instead of Lulu? She offers more slow, a longer distance harass, more CC, and a huge boost to survivability.

Sivir's kit is good but I always thought it was her unsafe range that kept her down? I don't know if the holy trinity being taken down a peg will be enough for her compared to just more Ashe and Kog. At least as far as competitive play is concerned.

Her range is fine. She has better kiting potential than many other AD carries actually because of the speed available to her from her ultimate and her passive. There are AD carries with lower AA range like Urgot.

If you doubt Sivir's viability in competitive play know that she was actually banned in a Korean tournament today.

Graves had been nerfed 2-4 times previously, but I'm not aware of any buffs to Ez or Corki that made them suddenly become dominating aside from Pulsefire Ezreal (which might have added some slight timing changes that made things better, but presumably people like because he's cool).

There was a mana cost reduction to Ezreal's W, which made it more viable to level that up first. The mana cost on his ult got bumped down too.

 

[scy]

Yorick doesn't revolve around his late game, and one ultimate isn't enough to justify the presence of someone as a support.

I didn't say he revolved around his late game, just that his late game revolved around his ult. Which doesn't actually need anything besides "I hit R on the right dude." In that sense, I can see the logic of him as support.

But...

There is a necessity for supports to bring CC, and Yorick simply doesn't offer that. His strength is as an unmovable and undying tank who provides some amount of utility to the entire team. He's a rotten support though because he needs to scale to actually be useful. Why would you pick Yorick as a support instead of Lulu? She offers more slow, a longer distance harass, more CC, and a huge boost to survivability.

All of this. There's better traditional supports. There's no reason to take him over a utility support or kill lane support. Beyond that, he does more than just using his ult late game so sacrificing that for a different top laner doesn't really make much sense.

Her range is fine. She has better kiting potential than many other AD carries actually because of the speed available to her from her ultimate and her passive. There are AD carries with lower AA range like Urgot.

I honestly don't follow the AD carry meta, just remembered the whole Sivir range being mentioned at some point. I just know she has a good kit (dat spellshield) and great mobility with a relatively low range.

...that said, Kog'maw has the same range (500) so I'm not sure that can even be a viable point against her. I hope she sees more play, I quite like her.

If you doubt Sivir's viability in competitive play know that she was actually banned in a Korean tournament today.

Bans are the true sign of competitive viability.

That started semi-sarcastic but, nope, pretty much true.

 

[EXGN]

Look, it's nice to want to buff everyone but it just isn't reasonable. There is a baseline for where champions should be that many of the AD carries are just above. It's partially why the role is so important right now. It's also an unrealistic amount of work to balance every single champion, and it potentially requires items to be retuned as well. Rumble and Renekton are both in a good place right now following their nerfs, so I don't know why you're bringing them up. Renekton has seen buffs and nerfs in various places, so he doesn't even fit as an example.

Corki, Ezreal, and Graves became as popular as they did because of a meta shift anyways. The mobility they had and the ability to jump walls simply offers them a huge leg up on the competition in many situations.

For your first point, I think it's debatable whether it's more difficult to buff three people rather than nerf them.

As for Renekton and Rumble, I meant that they became viable not because they were buffed in any way, but because other popular top laners like Gangplank, Udyr and Irelia were nerfed until they fell even with lower tier characters.

Also, great TL article previewing the US regionals: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=364543

 

[lazorexplosion]

i dont watch stream but i took the idea from ogn.
you want support to have good utility, yorick have that.
good slow + harass and he can ulti the fed member in the team before he die for round 2.
he is also really good against blitz or ez since his ghouls block skillshot.
i can play any support just fine but i want to explore things (4-1 so far with yorick 1200 elo).


sure there are champions that scales better in the game but yorick is still a beast, you deny your opponent farm and go into late game with better items and u can contribute better in the team fights with the ulti.

yorick with fully charged manamune and trinity is a force to be reckon with.

Yeah support Yorick has seen tournament level play occasionally, so he is a viable support pick.

 

[dimb]

...that said, Kog'maw has the same range (500) so I'm not sure that can even be a viable point against her. I hope she sees more play, I quite like her.

With his W active Kog'maw has the longest auto-attack range in the game.

For your first point, I think it's debatable whether it's more difficult to buff three people rather than nerf them.

As for Renekton and Rumble, I meant that they became viable not because they were buffed in any way, but because other popular top laners like Gangplank, Udyr and Irelia were nerfed until they fell even with lower tier characters.

The champions you listed were simply too strong. Gangplank could literally be played in any role and excel back before he was nerfed. And it wasn't just that, but he was one of the easiest champions to play. Even as someone who mained him I was glad he got nerfed. Udyr was in a similar place in that he could do really well with minimal effort. I don't know why you brought Irelia up. She is still incredibly powerful and maybe even needs to be brought down again and she remains one of the ten most popular champions at platinum level play because she is such a safe pick.

Oh, and Renekton has never been popular, and part of the reason Rumble took off was because double AP comps with WotA came into vogue.

 

[scy]

With his W active Kog'maw has the longest auto-attack range in the game.

Hm, that's true as well. Plus we can count Kog's ult range.

Well, regardless, I hope to see more Sivir around. I'll stick to learning Ezreal for the time being for my ADC.

Oh, and Renekton has never been popular...

Giant crocodiles just aren't a huge hit.

 

[Blizzard]

With his W active Kog'maw has the longest auto-attack range in the game.

I had a Kog'maw on my team recently complaining that the reason he had hardly any CS was being zoned out. We were like...but...your range...

 

[EXGN]

With his W active Kog'maw has the longest auto-attack range in the game.

The champions you listed were simply too strong. Gangplank could literally be played in any role and excel back before he was nerfed. And it wasn't just that, but he was one of the easiest champions to play. Even as someone who mained him I was glad he got nerfed. Udyr was in a similar place in that he could do really well with minimal effort. I don't know why you brought Irelia up. She is still incredibly powerful and maybe even needs to be brought down again and she remains one of the ten most popular champions at platinum level play because she is such a safe pick.

Oh, and Renekton has never been popular, and part of the reason Rumble took off was because double AP comps with WotA came into vogue.

That's kinda the crux of what I've been talking about? Never said they weren't powerful. I'd just rather Riot buff champions rather than nerfing them all the time. I'd rather have people like Gangplank stay the same and see other characters brought to their level rather than Riot nerfing them into being only half-decent picks.

 

[Inskipp]

That's kinda the crux of what I've been talking about? Never said they weren't powerful. I'd just rather Riot buff champions rather than nerfing them all the time. I'd rather have people like Gangplank stay the same and see other characters brought to their level rather than Riot nerfing them into being only half-decent picks.

That sounds like an open invitation for power creep.

I had a Kog'maw on my team recently complaining that the reason he had hardly any CS was being zoned out. We were like...but...your range...

If Kog is forced to use his W to farm creeps, it's very easy to zone him out of the lane when his W is under cooldown. That's an 8 second window he is forced to last hit in, and is vulnerable for another 9 seconds.

It's up to the support at that point to aid him and give him breathing room while farming.

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

40k IP, still not level 30.

Sivir is really versatile. Can kite, useful in team fights, spellshield is invaluable, and can push really well. She just has issues with early-game mana and lacks any form of slow/stun/disable. Maybe it's the fact that she's a jack-of-all-trades that doesn't make her that good of an ADC.

 

[Mister Wilhelm]

Sivir is a bad duelist against most of the other ADCs. I guess that's her biggest weakness.

 

[Q8D3vil]

40k IP, still not level 30.

Sivir is really versatile. Can kite, useful in team fights, spellshield is invaluable, and can push really well. She just has issues with early-game mana and lacks any form of slow/stun/disable. Maybe it's the fact that she's a jack-of-all-trades that doesn't make her that good of an ADC.

40k ip, how is that even legal.

 

[Blizzard]

Sivir is a bad duelist against most of the other ADCs. I guess that's her biggest weakness.

It also seems really easy to bait her shield sometimes. I don't really understand its timing (or maybe it's ping-dependent?), since some people seem to be able to shield almost after an effect has gone off, but still block it, while others can shield just before an effect but still take the damage. I like her best against Caitlyn or Nidalee or Teemo, though all of those are rare, because you can use the traps for mana.

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

I remember the spell shield failing to block a Caitlyn ult (and I wasn't taking the hit for someone either).

How to get 40k IP: getting 1st win of the day, IP boost weekends/events, buying no 6300 champs, one partially-filled rune page.

 

[Avinexus]

I remember the spell shield failing to block a Caitlyn ult (and I wasn't taking the hit for someone either).

How to get 40k IP: getting 1st win of the day, IP boost weekends/events, buying no 6300 champs, one partially-filled rune page.

I wouldn't be able to not spend it. I think the highest I ever got to was 12k before I spent it. I'm trying to not buy anymore RP though, so I buy all my champs with IP now.

 

[mercviper]

I remember the spell shield failing to block a Caitlyn ult (and I wasn't taking the hit for someone either).

How to get 40k IP: getting 1st win of the day, IP boost weekends/events, buying no 6300 champs, one partially-filled rune page.

I had roughly 35k IP when I hit 30 the first time. Didn't know what champs I liked the best yet so I hadn't really bought any, plus had only 2 very very generic rune pages with like mana regen yellows, CDR blues, HP quints, and penetration reds (AP or AD depending on the character). Also only played like 1-2 games per day when leveling, so pretty much fwotd bonuses over many days helped to stockpile that much.

Then I bought a rune page and filled out the free one they handed out to all accounts and specialized it more to all roles I play and went broke.

 

[zkylon]

40k IP, still not level 30.

Sivir is really versatile. Can kite, useful in team fights, spellshield is invaluable, and can push really well. She just has issues with early-game mana and lacks any form of slow/stun/disable. Maybe it's the fact that she's a jack-of-all-trades that doesn't make her that good of an ADC.

I don't think I've ever had more than 6300 IP at a same time lol...

 

[Q8D3vil]

just red that

Yorick doesn't revolve around his late game, and one ultimate isn't enough to justify the presence of someone as a support. There is a necessity for supports to bring CC, and Yorick simply doesn't offer that. His strength is as an unmovable and undying tank who provides some amount of utility to the entire team. He's a rotten support though because he needs to scale to actually be useful. Why would you pick Yorick as a support instead of Lulu? She offers more slow, a longer distance harass, more CC, and a huge boost to survivability.

his mana cost is really low, i can spam w and e easily and deny farm for a long time.
no other support can harass without investing tons of mana.
in one game i got so tanky from support items i was killing adc after denying them farm the whole laning phase, not to mention my adc getting triple kill after getting resurrected by my ultimate.

you say that because its not a popular pick right now, but when get a little exposure ( and he will get a nerf after that) you will that i was right all along

 

[Inskipp]

In case someone doesn't know, the regionals have started.

 

[EXGN]

In case someone doesn't know, the regionals have started.

These introductions are awkward, haha.

 

[Inskipp]

These introductions are awkward, haha.

Yeah they feel a little out of place, I'd just prefer if they started the games straight away.

 

[Ferrio]

These introductions are awkward, haha.

ESPORTS

 

[kiunchbb]

After this Diana change, I don't think I"ll be purchasing skins for quite some time.

Contact support for refund, they usually will do it if you give a good reason.

I remember someone got refund for the Ashe skin after the remake.

 

[scy]

In case someone doesn't know, the regionals have started.

Why must I be at work.

 

[AcridMeat]

Sitting here watching the regionals in person. Didn't know it was happening at Pax

 

[zkylon]

I remember someone got refund for the Ashe skin after the remake.

Good call. Cheerleader Ashe is terribad.

 

[dimb]

Sitting here watching the regionals in person. Didn't know it was happening at Pax

Say hi to Cop for me.

How awesome is that Rocketeer Tristana skin?

 

[Ferrio]

Sitting here watching the regionals in person. Didn't know it was happening at Pax

Start chanting DOTA

 

[bjaelke]

Sitting here watching the regionals in person. Didn't know it was happening at Pax

Soooooo about that Arcade Sona skin?

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

Maybe one day Riot will allow you to buy RP with IP.




Haha.

 

[bjaelke]

I want a Season Two Championship Riven summoner icon! How can I get one?
Watch the Season Two World Finals! We will be broadcasting a code during the event that you can redeem to unlock this commemorative summoner icon.

I want a Season Two Championship Riven skin! How can I get one?
The skin will be sold during a weekend after the World Championship. After that sale, it will no longer be available.

 

[Ferrio]

Fuck... riven skin... urg. Must stay strong.

 

[dimb]

I really wasn't expecting to see Nautilus today, although admittedly it's arguably the weakest team seeking him out.

 

[Inskipp]

Fuck... riven skin... urg. Must stay strong.

I'll succumb if it's not legendary priced.

 

[bjaelke]

I'll succumb if it's not legendary priced.

It's free

Spoiler

if you go see the finals

 

[scy]

All of my RP.

 

[zkylon]

Hawt. Too bad I can't play Riven for the life of me...

 

[Q8D3vil]

nice play from evo by exploiting darius weaknesses.

 

[EXGN]

Dat Curse coordination. Really is the difference-maker between these top-level teams. You see this with CLG, M5, etc. - you might get beat in lane, but the good teams have the coordination to bring it back mid-late game.

 

[bjaelke]

Will I get any awesome keepsakes or swag if I attend the Season Two World Championship in person?
Those of you who attend the Season Two World Finals at the USC Basketball Arena in Los Angeles, California will have a swag bag filled with awesome stuff waiting for you:

A limited edition, custom-made statue of Ryze and Tryndamere
A free Season Two Championship Riven skin you can unlock before it's released to the Store.
A Season Two Championship Riven commemorative summoner icon
A lot more cool stuff!

$40 to get in.

 

[Ferrio]

I hope a icon comes with the skin atleast. (the purchasable one)

 

[bigmakattack]

I was hoping to see EVO put up a fight against Curse, but this series is ending pretty predictably.

 

[scy]

I hope a icon comes with the skin atleast. (the purchasable one)

A travesty if this isn't the case

I also hope the skin is awesome.

 

[EXGN]

I was hoping to see EVO put up a fight against Curse, but this series is ending pretty predictably.

Rough to watch as an old EG fan. Their lineup has changed so much, and honestly they didn't even deserve to be in the tournament. Sucks that other teams like Orbit had to sit out, while Evo qualified because of loopholes.

Curse is looking super strong. Seriously looking like one of the big dogs, although I'm not sure how much of it was them doing well and how much of it was Evo doing bad.

 

[bjaelke]

Weren't EVO up in kills and gold at the start of the match? I only peeked at the stream as I was busy doing other stuff.

 

[dimb]

I was hoping to see EVO put up a fight against Curse, but this series is ending pretty predictably.

It was a really close game. There were a number of times where it looked like EVO would win.

 

[Samyy]

EVO's team fighting is almost as bad as Lolgaf games. (not seriously but it was pretty horrible).
Curse looks like they practice and EVO needs to learn how to play as a team for next year.

 

[bigmakattack]

It was a really close game. There were a number of times where it looked like EVO would win.

They looked good early in both games, but the second the team fights started, they got exposed. Their roster has changed too much and they didn't even get serious until Aphro left, and by then it was too late.

Speaking of Aphro, time to see if his team can put up a fight against the real TSM.