League Of Legends

Yeah I looked at LOLking but I cross that with some tier lists I googled up. They didn't agree with each other.

Anyway, I was mostly asking what the minor tweaks to Shyvanna put her. I guess no where different is the answer.

Talon is a fairly good counter pick to a lot of the most popular mids. Of course so is Kass who also benefits from being a brutal roamer.

Generally you should pick up champs that you like playing as. You can reach pretty much any rank with any of them, the difference between OP and UP is pretty minute for 98% of them.

Shyvana feels really good on the PBE right now but it's hard to get a legitimate feel what with the random quality of players there. There's also no saying they won't nerf her numbers before she hits live. People bitch about Talon being nerfed all the time but I believe he has a fairly high winrate anyway. Really, I would just avoid the bottom few champs as far as the winrate % is concerned (heimer, olaf, poppy, notably) and everyone else you find fun is probably balanced-ish, regardless of people whining about this or that.

Edit: I haven't played tons of games with PBE Shyv or anything, but she still clears bloody fast, is tankier than before with her Armor/MR being moved to passive, Dragon Form is up basically all the time and lasts forever now, and her reworked E helps with the big targets and dueling. The new Wit's End is actually a buff to her as well because so much of her damage is magic. You're still gonna need a frozen mallet to stick to anyone without your team contributing though.

You think she's worth the purchase now that she's one sale? It's the main reason I ask. I've basically told myself I'll just buy champs when they are on sale now after buying a few at normal pricing.

Shyvana was my favorite champion in s2 as well and I played the shit out of her. Unfortunately she isn't that great at the moment. I think with the couple buffs shes getting next patch as well as Oracles staying through death (this is still going through right?) could make her come back. Early invades are much stronger now since stealing a major buff can break the enemy jungler. I actually think I'll have to try playing her a couple games this weekend again just to get a feel for her again. I believe doing a madreds into bork could be extremely strong for her in the jungle. The ms steal active would help with ganks, plus having the double proc botrk off her Q would be pretty awesome, plus make clearing the jungle muuuuch faster. Maybe you wouldn't even have to get madreds...possibly a cloth + 5 start or maaaaaaybe could do a boots + 4 pot start if you get LS quints. Although then you lose out on MS quints which could be really bad.

So Draegan, I'd suggest just keep playing the free week champions and then buy the champions you enjoy, but if you really want to pick up Shyvana since she's on Sale I'd say go for it. She's fun to play and a very strong duelist, just it does kind of suck since so many people have escapes now that ganking with her can be really irritating. Can also do the Botrk-rush into full tank top shyvana which can be very strong. Once you get cutlass you can sustain in lane forever, split push all day and once 6, the chances of them actually ganking you are slim to none. Then again, with Jayces, Kennens & Ryzes all day long in top lane she does kinda struggle.

Fawe_sl said:

If you plan to unlock all the champions, and plan to pay RP for most of them, then go ahead and buy the ones on sale. It takes a while for champions to go on sale, some more frequent then others. I use to buy the normal-priced 975 RP champs when they went on sale and would pay IP for the cheaper champions to get a large champ pool fastest. Up to you how you do it but that's what I did... now im 100% unlock so I just pay IP for anything new and use RP for skins.

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Yea, based on your posts so far, I wouldn't recommend Shyvana in general as she's really ONLY a jungler. I could see maybe some top lane potential with her buffs but I don't know.

Sidian, the way I would go based on PBE now is, Madreds > Cutlass > Wit's End (unless they have NO magic damage) > tanky or finish botrk. The slow from cutlass is nearly as good and the 1800 to upgrade to botrk doesn't give you as much as Wit's End does for a few hundred more. Plus if you go all the way to botrk there's no way you can go Wit's End next without exploding constantly unless you're wayyyy ahead.

Shyvana isn't great or anything, and the "rework" will only make her better, but she's far from unplayable. There really aren't very many champions in such a state that they aren't viable, so I'd buy anything you see on sale that you're even slightly interested in playing. The only ones I'd consider unusable at this point (keep in mind this is for solo Q only, and at ratings far below diamond) are like sion/olaf/heimer/poppy/karma (she's still awful, admit it(/alistar/zilean/rengar/cass/veiger/urgot.

Before the flood of bitching comes in, keep in mind this is SOLO QUEUE AND AT LOWER RATINGS. Champs like veiger/cass function perfectly fine in terms of power, but are just asking for you to lose a shit load of games playing an AP mid with no mobility and range issues.

I would actually argue the point the other way, weak champions are way stronger at lower ELOs if you practice them because other people aren't as good at exploiting their weakness. Sion/Olaf/Heimer/Poppy/Karma/Zil/Rengar are all weak enough and take way too much effort to do well with them to ever recommend trying though. Alistar, Cass, Veigar, all have their places, albeit less so than others. Veigar is pretty amusing to play 90% of the time though.

Karma is fine right now if she's played as a mid, you can't always go with what lolking says.

Ronne_sl said:

Shyvana isn't great or anything, and the "rework" will only make her better, but she's far from unplayable. There really aren't very many champions in such a state that they aren't viable, so I'd buy anything you see on sale that you're even slightly interested in playing. The only ones I'd consider unusable at this point (keep in mind this is for solo Q only, and at ratings far below diamond) are like sion/olaf/heimer/poppy/karma (she's still awful, admit it(/alistar/zilean/rengar/cass/veiger/urgot.

Before the flood of bitching comes in, keep in mind this is SOLO QUEUE AND AT LOWER RATINGS. Champs like veiger/cass function perfectly fine in terms of power, but are just asking for you to lose a shit load of games playing an AP mid with no mobility and range issues.

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I'm sad nobody ever plays Zilean anymore. I occasionally play him Mid and dear lord he's such a boss. His bombs do absurd amounts of damage, his auto attack animation & range is pretty damn good too. Plus end game when 40% CDR and basically unlimited mana (fully stacked tear + blue buff) you can basically have your ultimate up like every 30 seconds. You can also keep somebody perma-slowed by 55% forever or keep your ADC sped up by 55% forever. He's pretty ridiculous end game. I use to play him a lot early season 2, but really haven't touched him besides a few times during season 3 so far. Having a Vayne on your team that's 55% faster and has a second life that will bring them back to 100% health is pretty disgusting.

To be honest though, even with blue buff & fully stacked tear you just fucking plow through your mana because everything is so damn expensive lol.

I have played Zilean mid and do like it, but you need a specific team comp for it to work. He's good at catching people out with perma uber slow and the utility of his ult, but his damage later in the game is nothing compared to even other 'utility' mids (Ori, Lux, Zyra). You need your team to bring the dps.

His bombs have to do absurd damage because it's the only damaging ability he has. He's very reliant on his teammates.

Amzin_sl said:

I have played Zilean mid and do like it, but you need a specific team comp for it to work. He's good at catching people out with perma uber slow and the utility of his ult, but his damage later in the game is nothing compared to even other 'utility' mids (Ori, Lux, Zyra). You need your team to bring the dps.

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Yeah true, his DPS does fall off a bit. I don't think it's as bad though because with 40% cdr you can rewind every 4 seconds or so which means you can constantly be throwing bombs out during fights. I think his biggest downfall is the fact the bombs take 4 seconds before they blow up so players can easily move away from their team mates or use zhonyas, barrier, get a shield from an ally etc etc etc.

You do have to remember though his level 5 bomb down 320 (.9 ap) which means they still hit like trucks end game. End game with 500 AP each bomb does a good 770dmg before resists and you can easily double bomb. 1500 dmg is no laughing matter.

edit
I should say, he's awesome to play if you're duo queue with an ADC friend that you know isn't retarded. Nothing worse then popping your ult on your team mate and they use all their escapes + flash + barrier to run, then you're ult goes to waste. >.<

I guess insane CC is a knockup every 12+ secs. If your ult or flash is up and if your team doesn't suck, you can charge in there, knockup and knock someone back towards your team, but compared to other supports with pulls or more CC options, he's really fallen on the wayside.

He's a great peeler and a decent initiater, but to say he's got insane CC is...insane.

I broke down and bought Kassadin last night and shit, that champ was annoying to play at first, but once I got used to the kit became very fun to play. Any good streams/players I can watch to get a good idea on the play style?

Lol Draegan, you're doing this champ thing out of order. Find a streamer you like then buy champs that you watch him play that look fun!

http://www.twitch.tv/wingsofdeath/(Mains top in Diamond 1; probably best all around streamer due to how much effort he puts into explaining his plays and admitting his mistakes. He routinely gets 20k+ viewers because of how good he is at explanation)
http://www.twitch.tv/tsm_wildturtle/(Ridiculously good ADC; crushes Challengers like they're silvers. Has three accounts in Challenger tier)
http://www.twitch.tv/bestrivenna/(Seriously the best riven player I've ever seen; how much pain he deals out with that champion makes watching his games fun. Watch a few of his games and you'll probably want to buy Riven)

Twitch tip, don't watch the streams live. Get adblock and watch the videos. For example, checkhttp://www.twitch.tv/tsm_wildturtle/videosselect "Past Broadcasts" and just work your way through their archives. This way you don't have to wait for death timers or other boring shit (queue time, champ pick...)