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[Mr Nash]

I need to get better at reading my ADCs in randoms. I don't know if they just weren't paying attention or wanted to take things slow, but I was constantly locking the other team's support and adc as Morgana and Leona last night, and it took a good 3-5 seconds before my adc realized they should probably attack the person in question. Not sure if they were tunnel visioning last hits, or just wanted to farm CS until late game. Even when I ask them what they want to do, they don't say anything. =\

Maybe it was bad luck, as I've had other matches where the adc switched targets right away and got a free kill. Still frustrating, though. T_T

Kinda looking forward to Blitz being free this week. I suspect he'll be in bottom lane a lot. =S

 

[Einbroch]

Got gold last night.

Can you decay out of gold?

 

[Lone_Prodigy]

I've adopted a "meh" mentality in Bronze. Either my team stomps or is stomped. I can't do anything about another lane that feeds 3 kills in the first 5 minutes. If our jungler keeps dying, I'm not going to bother asking for a gank. 20 minutes goes by pretty quickly.

I just roll the dice and hope I get some guy on tilt on the other team and/or a Plat smurf on my team.

I'm not a great player by any means, but I'm getting way more LP for a win than a loss and I was Silver last season so I know I'll get back there eventually, even if I have to lose every second game to get there.

 

[Mr Nash]

Got gold last night.

Can you decay out of gold?

My understanding is decay pushes you to the bottom of a tier but not out of it, so you can go down from, say, Gold III to Gold V, but it wouldn't push you into Silver tier.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

I can play up to a higher elo and do fine. I do it all the time with friends. I can't play down. I'm truly terrible at it. It probably means that I'm bad at the game, but can stay competent with better competition. I'm not good enough to influence or tilt a game enough in my favor at low elo. So either I magically rise up out of silver and get back to gold 4 (and above), or I just wallow around here until I learn what to do.

I know the "how to carry out of silver" bullet points. They're there for me to review, but I just don't see it work in practice.

Again, I'm probably just bad and was lucky to ever get into gold 4 in the first place.

 

[garath]

Got gold last night.

Can you decay out of gold?

They did away with decay Gold and under last I knew.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

They did away with decay Gold and under last I knew.

Yeah, you can't decay out of gold. I hit gold with about a month to go in the season and I let it sit there until the preseason. I just played normals.

 

[Ghost is Bad]

if ur mad at ranked just remember that u die i get paid.

 

[Kotetsu534]

Actually won a ranked game with a poke comp against super hard engage despite falling behind early (Maokai/Pantheon/Nidalee/Caitlyn/Thresh vs. Irelia/Wukong/Kassadin/Graves/Leona). Very well played by my team's Nidalee and Thresh. I abandoned my lane after hitting level 6 or so since Irelia got a double kill with a bot lane TP gank and managed to make a bunch of good engages to help get us back in. Their Graves more or less threw the game by going BT instead of IE, since he couldn't take me down through RoA and FH and his divers couldn't get the right engage due to so much vision - three pinks plus two early upgraded yellow trinkets.

Neither jungler did much of anything despite not falling behind or playing badly. I banned Jarvan and Vi (along with Kat). Granted Wukong jungle sucks horribly (lol getting your second buff at nearly 4:00 despite no invasion) and Pantheon had to hold top while I roamed and TP'd relentlessly, but still. I think jungle is going to suck this season if Jarvan and Vi are nerfed and it isn't made easier.

New upgraded yellow trinket is super OP.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

Upgraded yellow trinket is the best thing ever. Too bad I'm the only one that has bought it in any of my games. It's something that if it catches on will improve the baseline level of play in League, because vision will be more prevalent, even at low elo.

 

[Nekofrog]

upgraded yellow is one of the first things i get when i hit the level requirement. i'll even forego an item just to get it. love that little thing.

 

[zkylon]

I was just entertaining the thought of making her more of a single target burster instead of a team deleter. I agree that some other changes would probably be far better.

to me that would not be too interesting as there's already a ton of single target burster assassins in the game, and tbh one of katarina's big issues is that she's already capable of instagibbing single targets while also being able to delete entire teams

if anything i'd do the opposite and butcher her single target capabilities. like exactly the opposite, nerf her ult on less than 3 targets, make her shunpo dmg reduction go down the less enemies she's near (like j4 shield), etc.

also make some of her kit have some difficulty to pull off. like she literally presses all her buttons on top of her opponent right now, it's so fucking dumb. make her q a skillshot, give her a new w that's not as braindead, make her ult have a smaller range, whatever, just change something that makes her actually outplayable. i actually think her ult being like dot is super weird and should probably be replaced by something that actually shoots a bunch of daggers that you can visibly dodge or flash away or whatever. and remove damn grievous wounds, why the hell does kat have that shit lol

the concept of kat just resetting all over your team is cool and looks awesome to see her clean up a whole team in an instant, but she shouldn't be able to infinitely trade in lane thanks to no mana and the 4 pot start, while being ungankable, getting like a million burst at level 6 which you cannot dodge and that she deals while having reduced damage is just too damn much

 

[Jeff-DSA]

I think Katarina is fine. I think people need to learn how to deal with her. Any CC will interrupt her ult and she's totally worthless in a team fight from there. In a 1v1, she can only delete a target if that target A) has no CC, B) doesn't have exhaust/barrier/heal, C) has no escape, and D) flash is on cooldown.

She can't even deal any real burst. She can Q, E, W, a target and maybe...MAYBE take a 1/4 of their health off. Someone like LeBlanc can just take you down to under 50% in a blink of an eye without any risk, right from level 2.

Akali still has better 1v1 burst than Katarina, and she doesn't have all the little qualifiers. Malzahar can delete an opponent faster, and he can be big in team fights with a well placed silence.

People don't like Katarina because they don't react to her, but she's one of the easiest to nullify champs in the game. There's a reason she doesn't show up in the LCS.

If anything should be reworked on Katarina it's that maybe the reset on her E should be to .5 seconds, not an immediate reset.

 

[Terbinator]

Upgraded yellow trinket is the best thing ever. Too bad I'm the only one that has bought it in any of my games. It's something that if it catches on will improve the baseline level of play in League, because vision will be more prevalent, even at low elo.

And go back to season 3? Ugh.

I prefer it as is, that is, a basic building block/learning tool of getting better at the game and adapting to situations.

 

[DeadNames]

I haven't seen Akali/LB(trash champ by the way)/or Malz delete my entire team in sub 5 seconds.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

I haven't seen Akali/LB(trash champ by the way)/or Malz delete my entire team in sub 5 seconds.

The only reason Kat should is because literally nobody put any CC on her.

LB just makes every fight a 4v5 because she'll kill a carry at the start. Then she'll clean up at the end.

 

[Edwardo]

Well a big problem is teams will pick champs that have no stuns or anything to stop assassins. So if you're not better than them or just stay even, then you're going to lose.

 

[Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule]

So do you guys know how to counter a leblanc? Any good champ for this?

 

[Terbinator]

Why the fuck has Reksai not been nerfed into oblivion yet.

So do you guys know how to counter a leblanc? Any good champ for this?

Morg, Annie.

Exhaust, Banshees Veil. Just because you're playing mid don't think you shouldn't take exhaust.

 

[Nekofrog]

Jesus Christ this week shall be known as The Benchening

 

[Jeff-DSA]

Why the fuck has Reksai not been nerfed into oblivion yet.

Why are you trying to harsh on Rex's mellow?

 

[Ghost is Bad]

So do you guys know how to counter a leblanc? Any good champ for this?

lissandra.

 

[Akira]

Zyra gave me a win. Praise the plant.

Edit:

Zyra gave me another win. Had a FILTHY quadra kill where I flashed forward, rooted 4 guys, dropped an ult, seeds and Q. They all died at the same time.

Report this scripting Zyra.

 

[Blizzard]

I feel like almost every game, I advertise the 250g upgraded trinkets in chat. Everyone is level 9! Only 250g! Please upgrade! So OP! etc.

People probably only listen occasionally, but it's nice when they do try it.

 

[Newt]

Ugh, another Vel'Koz support. RIP me.

 

[garath]

Why the fuck has Reksai not been nerfed into oblivion yet.
.

She was already nerfed pretty hard.

I feel like almost every game, I advertise the 250g upgraded trinkets in chat. Everyone is level 9! Only 250g! Please upgrade! So OP! etc.

People probably only listen occasionally, but it's nice when they do try it.

You know, I'd probably buy it if someone reminded me. I genuinely forget about trinkets other than swapping yellow for red on jungle.

Are the new Maurader skins out now? I see someone playing the new WW skin on stream? Don't think he's on PBE.

 

[zkylon]

sorry but

I think Katarina is fine. I think people need to learn how to deal with her. Any CC will interrupt her ult and she's totally worthless in a team fight from there.

not any cc, interrupts only. you'll see that a ton of champions don't have those, and certainly not instant and usually a skillshot (skillshots are weird to land when the target is right on top of you)

In a 1v1, she can only delete a target if that target A) has no CC, B) doesn't have exhaust/barrier/heal, C) has no escape, and D) flash is on cooldown.

a) above
b) she deals grievous wounds so heal is half effective. applies to every assassin. summoner spells that have 4x the cooldown of a champion's ultimate aren't counterplay btw
c) applies to every that needs to get in your face to kill you
d) applies to every champion

She can't even deal any real burst. She can Q, E, W, a target and maybe...MAYBE take a 1/4 of their health off.

why would you ignore katarina's ult burst?

akali also doesn't have much damage without her ult either, would you say she doesn't have any real burst? or veigar?

Someone like LeBlanc can just take you down to under 50% in a blink of an eye without any risk, right from level 2.

leblanc q+w does 200~ damage without counting resistances. no one has less than 400 damage at level 2

also you can dodge leblanc w and she has mana

but sure, leblanc is problematic too

Akali still has better 1v1 burst than Katarina, and she doesn't have all the little qualifiers.

yes, akali is awful too. they both actually have almost the same problems

Malzahar can delete an opponent faster, and he can be big in team fights with a well placed silence.

how? literally 3 out of 4 malzahar spells are dot and even q has a cast time

all of katarina's damage is instant except her ult and even then it's a 1.0ap ratio per second

People don't like Katarina because they don't react to her, but she's one of the easiest to nullify champs in the game. There's a reason she doesn't show up in the LCS.

people don't like katarina because she deletes your entire team with the shallowest of counterplay while also being a lane bully (no mana cost on q) that you can't even harass out of lane (because of boots 4 pots start) and that you can't even gank (because of shunpo).

kat isn't played on lcs because she's melee with no waveclear, which is much easier to abuse by coordinated teams than solo queue, has nothing to do with how easy her ult is to interrupt, which btw, in a teamfight scenario, isn't as easy.

 

[Amiele]

 

[le bip]

Did someone just call Kat a lane bully? Welp

EDIT: my name for that list would be "10 reasons why I love playing with Dob"

 

[zkylon]

So do you guys know how to counter a leblanc? Any good champ for this?

avoid interaction with her as much as possible. just waveclear and don't try to trade. you might want to freeze and have her overextend to last hit but you really don't want to be under turret against her, so watch out. she's def gankable pre-6 since a lot of them will try doing q+w on you over and over

get barrier or exhaust. i still like taking ignite with ori cos i can tank a lot of damage with shield

get athenes instead of morellos. don't bother with merc treads since if you're rooted you're not gonna survive long enough for the tenacity to matter. you can also get an early cowl if you're well farmed but that's debatable.

lizzy is good against her, ahri too and i think lulu too, tho not too sure. imo xerath is good against her since she'll have to do double w to get close to you, but it's a skill matchup i think

just don't be close to minions and bully her when her w is down since it has a really long cooldown (tho by level 8~ it'll be fairly short).

Are the new Maurader skins out now? I see someone playing the new WW skin on stream? Don't think he's on PBE.

yeah they are

Did someone just call Kat a lane bully? Welp

EDIT: my name for that list would be "10 reasons why I love playing with Dob"

she is in a meta in which athenes is not good. 4 pots with no mana versus 2 and limited mana. she'll outsustain you and ult you at 6 and force you to back

it's what every kat does and you can't do anything about it

 

[Nekofrog]

how to counter leblanc:

take ziggs with barrier, push her shit into tower and spam laugh because 99% of leblancs will never be able to get more than 2 CS under a tower

 

[Jeff-DSA]

snip

But the fact that coordination brings her down is all the proof you need that she has a valid place in the game. I mean, it's the same story with hyper carries. Deny them farm, keep them from getting kills. It takes a team effort to deal with them or to hold them down.

I think removing Katarina as a team fight nuke would ruin a strategic part of the game. Maybe they can tone it down a little, sure. Too much and you lose a very interesting character.

I would be fine giving her a mana pool as well. Maybe shorten her cooldowns on Q and E slightly, but make it so you can't spam the spells. Make her ult very expensive to cast. I just don't think that touching her damage or her ability to drop a nuke in a team fight is very interesting for the game, especially when it's easy to interrupt.

For reals, there's nothing I like more than seeing the other team first pick Katarina. I just pick someone that can interrupt her and she's a waste.

how to counter leblanc:

take ziggs with barrier, push her shit into tower and spam laugh because 99% of leblancs will never be able to get more than 2 CS under a tower

This actually works, but a good jungler will wreck your day and murder you with ganks or at least force you to ease up.

 

[Nekofrog]

alternatively, fiddlesticks mid absolutely obliterates katarina

Fear interrupts her
Silence interrupts her
Combo that with a drain and she literally cant do anything

Plus your crow spam huuurtts

This actually works, but a good jungler will wreck your day and murder you with ganks or at least force you to ease up.

if duo queued, it's easy to coordinate a counter gank. A level 3 Ziggs is going to be infinitely more useful than a level 3 LB. if solo q'ed... just stay map aware and you're fine.

 

[le bip]

she is in a meta in which athenes is not good. 4 pots with no mana versus 2 and limited mana. she'll outsustain you and ult you at 6 and force you to back

it's what every kat does and you can't do anything about it

Well that's not really true, if you wanna talk about the meta you have to consider the whole picture so:
1. pretty much every other meta midlaner is ranged and that already invalidates the sustain point, since she gets harassed for free every time she autos (by the way, if she uses q to farm she isn't poking and she is pushing the lane, good luck being pushed early as a melee champ)
2. All the meta midlaners I can think of right now have cc or at least a dash which they can use at 6 to completely deny kat's all in (unless they try to outplay it, which is possible of course, and if they fail well they just deserve to die), Ahri has charm, xerath has a stun, liss has a stun, lb has distortion, etc

To be honest her very subpar laning is one of the reasons she isn't a problematic champion, since she's really really good from late laning to mid game.

 

[garath]

Well that's not really true, if you wanna talk about the meta you have to consider the whole picture so:
1. pretty much every other meta midlaner is ranged and that already invalidates the sustain point, since she gets harassed for free every time she autos (bu the way, if she uses q to farm she isn't poking and she is pushing the lane, good luck being pushed early as a melee champ
2. All the meta midlaners I can think of right now have cc or at least a dash which they can use at 6 to completely deny kat's all in (unless they try to outplay it, which is possible of course, and if they fail well they just deserve to die), Ahri has charm, xerath has stun, liss has stun, lb has distortion, etc

To be honest her very subpar laning is one of the reasons she isn't a problematic champion, since she's really really from late laning to mid game.

I really have to agree with le bip. Kat's laning phase is really the weakest part of Kat. Even Tiensi will sit there and just soak xp, giving up CS to try and make up for it later with good roams and kills. It's a bad day if you are getting out laned by Kat as any ranged mid.

 

[Newt]

That's pretty cool actually. Someone do that for me.

 

[Amiele]

Did someone just call Kat a lane bully? Welp

EDIT: my name for that list would be "10 reasons why I love playing with Dob"

it's a hate - love relationship

 

[zkylon]

But the fact that coordination brings her down is all the proof you need that she has a valid place in the game. I mean, it's the same story with hyper carries. Deny them farm, keep them from getting kills. It takes a team effort to deal with them or to hold them down.

katarina has none of the issues hyper carries are supposed to have (and many others don't either btw). her midgame is insane, she has no mana issues, she can safely break a freeze or farm from a distance, she has tons of mobility to escape ganks or camping, etc.

hyper carries are imo very underdeveloped in that they take a ton more skill to shut down than to actually get rolling. picking a hyper carry should be a gamble you do in which you concede the early game in exchange for the late. in reality what happens is that most hyper carries have a ton of reliable fallback options that make it so that even if they go even they win, so basically all the pressure is on the enemy team to punish them. as the scaling team all you have to do is not get rolled over, and champions like kogmaw or tristana or (maybe not now) ryze, can easily do that.

champions needing lcs-like coordination to beat them can't possibly be considered a proof that they're "well balanced" or whatever. pro play has an entirely different ruleset than solo queue.

I think removing Katarina as a team fight nuke would ruin a strategic part of the game. Maybe they can tone it down a little, sure. Too much and you lose a very interesting character.

i never said anything about nerfing her teamfighting, i literally opposed that idea and my suggestion was to actually nerf her single target damage instead. jumping around shunpoing everywhere and one by one killing your team is great, leave that it, just add some real counterplay to her spells.

I would be fine giving her a mana pool as well. Maybe shorten her cooldowns on Q and E slightly, but make it so you can't spam the spells. Make her ult very expensive to cast. I just don't think that touching her damage or her ability to drop a nuke in a team fight is very interesting for the game, especially when it's easy to interrupt.

i think there's a case to be made for her having mana (and maybe her reset gives her one non-stackable free cast of each spell), but i don't know how itemization would work for her since she has that weird dual scaling thing and it feels like giving her mana might make her super broken with muramana or something

For reals, there's nothing I like more than seeing the other team first pick Katarina. I just pick someone that can interrupt her and she's a waste.

rito has said it before that champion select isn't proper counterplay. sure, you can pick maokai and just mash q but i don't decide who the top laner is.

This actually works, but a good jungler will wreck your day and murder you with ganks or at least force you to ease up.

yeah, the problem with pushing leblanc is that she's fantastic at following up ganks and even if you're ziggs/xerath and you have 1200~ range you can still get ganked from behind. pre-6 it shouldn't be too bad as you should never be in range of her w but after 6 that's prolly not such a good idea

you should just go do wraiths, not even bother harassing her under turret. most leblancs are awful at last hitting under turret so no need to overdo it

i think freezing is a bit better cos leblanc can't break a freeze without wasting her only escape and you can just have your jungler gank her after she tries doing that

 

[Ghost is Bad]

new item incoming

lcs bench.

replace your teammate with a similar substitute for the rest of the game.

 

[Newt]

Lol, what a dumb game.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

As I've been spectating a bit recently, I've been trying to catch games with Hecarim in them. He's pretty fun to watch. He's such a terror right now. Don't we have a couple of guys here that play him quite a bit? He seems like lots of fun. I'd like to expand my jungler pool beyond Pantheon, Amumu, and Skarner. I might be giving Rek'Sai a chance too.

If I don't quit.

 

[Ghost is Bad]

dont play hec he's butts.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

dont play hec he's butts.

But everybody is playing Vi. That seems so cliche.

 

[Leezard]

Hec is in quite a good spot right now. He's a sleeper.

 

[Purple Cheeto]

I feel like almost every game, I advertise the 250g upgraded trinkets in chat. Everyone is level 9! Only 250g! Please upgrade! So OP! etc.

People probably only listen occasionally, but it's nice when they do try it.

I hate when my team is losing and they're like "what's going wrong!" and I go "well I have a sight stone and the only wards on the map are the 3 I put down despite everyone else having the basic, unupgraded vision trinket". But I'm Bronze V so I kind of expect this kind of stuff every game.

Of course according to Ward Score I ward more than 58% of players: http://wardscore.loltools.net/ although amazingly only better than 33% of supports, which boggles my mind because the only time I don't have 3 wards up is when I'm stuck in base.

I ward more than 70% of tanks though, probably cause I get sight stone when jungling a lot of the time.

 

[zkylon]

Well that's not really true, if you wanna talk about the meta you have to consider the whole picture so:
1. pretty much every other meta midlaner is ranged and that already invalidates the sustain point, since she gets harassed for free every time she autos (bu the way, if she uses q to farm she isn't poking and she is pushing the lane, good luck being pushed early as a melee champ
2. All the meta midlaners I can think of right now have cc or at least a dash which they can use at 6 to completely deny kat's all in (unless they try to outplay it, which is possible of course, and if they fail well they just deserve to die), Ahri has charm, xerath has stun, liss has stun, lb has distortion, etc

To be honest her very subpar laning is one of the reasons she isn't a problematic champion, since she's really really from late laning to mid game.

i don't see how, you'll spend all your mana harassing back and then it's your autos against her qs. she can tank the harass because she has more pots than you and she can shunpo dodge (or just dodge, remember she starts boots) your spells.

you can poke her under turret but that's the same as any other assassin, you'll get inevitably ganked by j4 and she'll follow up easy

i went overboard with "lane bully", but you can definitely not shut her down like you used to

and she is a late game assassin with a high winrate, so i'd say she's def a problematic champion

 

[garath]

As I've been spectating a bit recently, I've been trying to catch games with Hecarim in them. He's pretty fun to watch. He's such a terror right now. Don't we have a couple of guys here that play him quite a bit? He seems like lots of fun. I'd like to expand my jungler pool beyond Pantheon, Amumu, and Skarner. I might be giving Rek'Sai a chance too.

If I don't quit.

Nidalee is super fun in the jungle. Not your average one.

Based on that pool you may like Sejuani too.

 

[V_Arnold]

I had a match where Thresh (support) started literally freaking out whenever I hit Leona, the enemy support.

OMG WHY FOCUS
I AM OUT
I GO AFK NOW
CAIT YOU BRAINDEAD

See, we were constantly on full hp, and they kept losing health, I could not ever get to Jinx, but we were forcing them out of lanes, and I was happy farming.

Then once he freaks out, we have an engagement where Thresh just goes in, Jinx throws the traps between him and me, and they both get away with like...10% hp. I am on half health, out of mana, and Thresh freaks out again.

He apparently wanted me to just waltz into Jinx's traps, go past a leona, and "focus" a jinx, who, in this time, could just as well return the favor.

Then the game goes to hell. I get no kills, jungler RIGHT after this comes helping us, where help means a triple kill for the enemy team. Thresh just stands there, btw, enemy Fiddle came.

Meanwhile, Ahri is getting demolished by Veigar at mid. Darius gotta darius. They start to watch me attack Leona. Every time I attack Leona, they collectively shout at me. Nevermind that I wont dive into an enemy team, and yeah, I will only hit who I can safely hit without going into Veigar's stun cells and into Jinx traps. But hey!

We lost, big time. IT was embarassing.
I do not feel at fault. These people have no concept of just safely laning, no. I need to FOCUS ADC, even if it means going through traps and leonas so there is no escape. I am supposed to duel Jinx close range, right? (No.). As Caitlyn. Lol.

 

[drawkcaB]

All that and anti-Semitic to boot.

Hec is in quite a good spot right now. He's a sleeper.

Yep. Gonna start playing him top once I'm done practicing Sion.

 

[le bip]

i don't see how, you'll spend all your mana harassing back and then it's your autos against her qs. she can tank the harass because she has more pots than you and she can shunpo dodge (or just dodge, remember she starts boots) your spells.

you can poke her under turret but that's the same as any other assassin, you'll get inevitably ganked by j4 and she'll follow up easy

i went overboard with "lane bully", but you can definitely not shut her down like you used to

and she is a late game assassin with a high winrate, so i'd say she's def a problematic champion

She's melee, you don't even have to use spells to harass, if she farms with q she stays healthy but pushes the lane and gets ganked/zoned out, if she pokes you with q she's still pushing and you can still trade back, it's not like she has invulnerability when casting q or something, if she uses shunpo you can harass her back/zone her/get her ganked, she's basically disabled when shunpo is down, and by the way if she harasses with q (whose damage is laughable until she gets levels/ap) she has to farm with autos so you can punish every lasthit with an autoattack (you don't burn mana from that). I don't really know what to add, bI just think that if you have trouble laning vs katarina it has more to do with the way you handle the matchups than with her kit/patterns.