**OLD THREAD** League of Legends - F2P MOBA (like DOTA)

[xCxStylex]

Here's what I like to do, and here's my disclaimer that this is best case scenario.

I like to initiate a team fight with ghost, run in, ult, bust out spells like Q and E, and then...

1 - Enemy starts to run or back up. That's fine, we pursue.
2 - I get focus fired (usually what happens). Pool to escape, and during this time that you're being focused, hopefully your team is dealing out damage on them. If you're still focused even though hopefully, you should be in the middle of your team in a semi-safe area, zhonyas for the invulnerability. Your pool should be up very soon, hopefully with the CDR you have, no one should be able to click on you fast enuff to finish you off.

How do you really use Zhonya's ring? 2 secs imprevious, do you just wait for the battle to unload and your team being the losers?

Then unleash the Kraken?

 

[crownjules]

Also... here's one more benefit about getting MP5 seals. Essentially, it's the same concept as "Mana regeneration runes give you a strong early game," but for some characters, having mp5 seals is all you need in terms of mana regen. You can save a slot that you otherwise might have had for a meki pendant or some other sort of mana regeneration.

Yep. Before I got MP5/lvl runes, I'd have to dedicate an item slot in my Ashe build for mana regen or else I'd always be out of mana when I needed it the most. That costs valuable time in completing your main item (IE).

Speaking of Ashe, I have had to play with some horrible ones lately. DON'T BUY ASPD WEAPONS! It's like they don't even read what her passive does and how that synergizes with IE late game to basically give you a 400+ damage first shot every every fight. If you're good and can avoid trouble, then get Zerker Greaves. And a HP heavy build means going Bloodrazor instead of IE which gives you everything in one nice package. But I'm so sick of seeing Ashe's rushing Phantom Dancer and being unable to carry late game and therefore being completely ineffective except for having a 60 second stun.

 

[Fenixgoon]

so i was reading LoL forums and I saw this:

"riot unveils Brolaf, king of Bromacia"

olaf with jeans, polo, 2 popped collars, and beer cans instead of horns.

in response to the post, someone says
"we demand blitzcrunk!"

i thought it was funny 😀

 

[HumblePie]

Had a few runs with fenix and xstrifex tonight. Was fun 🙂

 

[HumblePie]

How do you really use Zhonya's ring? 2 secs imprevious, do you just wait for the battle to unload and your team being the losers?

Then unleash the Kraken?

Zhonyas is when you are being focused in a team fight. Most of the squishies tend to be focused early and fast. You have to be really quick about it and pop it. Basically for 2 seconds you can't die, and nothing can target you. This is good in many ways. Because the other team will then randomly target the nearest target before they regain control of their chars, if they notice in time. Many do not notice it though. This is especially helpful if the nearest target is a minion since that will now take the next hit or two and not one of your team mates. Of course that is for auto attacks. But people trying to click on you will not be able to and they waste time then standing around trying to find a new target. Which they may not all agree in a time fight fast enough which target to focus next on your team. If your team is on the ball, this can change a team fight that may have ended in a disaster.

 

[crownjules]

Had a few runs with fenix and xstrifex tonight. Was fun 🙂

Those were a good few first games. Then we ran into a couple games where our initiators couldn't start fights (that Sion who basically only would use his stun/ult near our towers) or games where we had poor team comps.

I like Irelia's design, but she needs a little something to make her really viable. As she stands right now, you'd have to put her as a low Tier 2/high Tier 3 champ. There's definitely better picks than her (Xin, Olaf, and Garen namely). It feels like her ult doesn't do much damage and maybe could use a slight buff to the ratio it gets from AD/AP.

 

[HumblePie]

Yay, the games with fenix were good. The we were moving between games with others. Some of them were decent players that made mistakes that snowballed into badly lost games. The last couple games though we didn't have a chance as a couple of the players were not good at all in my opinion.

There are just some things that people never seem to learn while playing.

One of the biggest lessons I wish people would learn is that during the laning phase (levels 1-8) you should NEVER EVER EVER push. That means do not attack any of the enemy minions if you can help it except to last hit. Pushing does nothing good for you during this phase and can only lead to bad. First off, it puts you far away from your tower. This makes you susceptible to being ganked. It also allows the enemy champs to get full experience by being able to hug the tower and not have to worry about being driven off.

What should be done instead? Last hit only. Allow them to push. Instead use your attacks to harass and get the hell away. Poke them slowly and drain them down. When you get to the point that you and and your laning partner (if you aren't solo) are in an overwhelming good condition against the enemy champ(s) then you straddle their minion creep wave and deny them exps. Let me give you an example.

I was going solo mid last night against a vlad. Vlad is one of the few chars at the beginning that even I as xin have a hard time killing. If they aren't being stupid, I can't kill them. That does not mean I can not successfully go mid lane against them. As xin against vlad I can out burst DPS a vlad any time if we start out on equal footing. Usually what I do is let vlad push and only last hit until the minions get to my tower. Soon as all the minions are by my tower and vlad gets in close, I teleport on to him and take him down as far as I can. If I get lucky I kill him for being dumb. However, normally he pools and runs but has taken significant damage compared to me. I am at this point near full life and he is less than half or closer to death. What do I do at this point? I DO NOT PUSH. I sit there. As long as I am between him and his minions he gets ZERO EXPERIENCE. He get ZERO GOLD. If he can't close the distance the only thing he can do is recall back. If he doesn't recall, I'll sit there all day and play that game of preventing him from getting close enough to get experience and gold. If he does recall, then I go back to last hitting more often but not pushing. Pushing mid is bad and puts me in easy position for jungle gankage. Once he comes back, I play that dance again of letting them push and then me denying them experience. When I did this I ended up 4 levels above the vlad I was against in mid lane. I hit 10 when he hit 6 and then I finally ended up destroying him and his team. I think I went 17/6 that game before they surrendered.

The other thing I mean to make mention is do not be greedy during the laning phase. Do not over extend yourself for a kill on an enemy champ in the early part of the game. Harass and get back. Learn how much damage you can do when you do a burst harass attack before falling back. Do it over and over until you know that the next harass will kill them if they don't leave. Then go in for the kill. The tortoise will win this race every time in LoL.

These are a couple basics people need to learn in my opinion that I can't stress enough. Even when I'm on a team where the players aren't intentionally feeding, afking, or leaving the reason the game is lost or won is decided in the first 10 minutes of the game. It is decided by who over pushes and extends and gets their butts handed to them. Then it snowballs from there. I can't tell you the number of games where I started out going 6/0 or something great to ending the game at 6/9 or something bad because my team allowed the other team they were laning against to grow too big and too fast. No matter how great a player a person is, there is nothing they can do when they are 3-5 levels below the enemy champ and under equipped in comparison. It doesn't matter what that champ is either. The best player in the world will still lose that fight.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I pretty much agree with everything you said humble. I've been playing jungle Olaf lately and if my team mates have pushed all the way to the enemy tower it basically denies me any chance of a gank. Compare that to the situations where the enemy is crowding my tower, and in that case its almost a guarenteed gank of 1, if not both of the enemies.

The only good I can see of pushing someone back to thier tower is that since the tower is killing most of the minions it denies them gold. Although this pales in comparison to what you do, which denies gold and xp.

There is nothing worse than a lane feeding a single character. The only character that it seems that can be fed beyond belief on a team and not make that much of a difference later is Eve.

I'm also convinced Olaf fails at lane ganking compared to other junglers (WW, Shaco). If you miss with his axe skillshot thier pretty much going to get away unless your teammates have some sort of CC, while WW and Shaco have a much great element of surprise and ability to close to melee much faster.

 

[Taejin]

I would quibble a little with the sentiment that you should 'never' push your lane.

For me, the ideal lane is where your opponent has ONE more creep than you do. This means that their creeps will always be pushing, but not too much. So, instead of always last-hitting, I will try to equalize out the # of creeps up til the opponent only has one or two more creeps in the lane (when a fresh batch of creeps arrive). This will keep you comfortably nearer to your tower.

The reason I say this is because if your opponent does something stupid and gets punished, their creeps can actually make the difference between your opponent killing you, or you killing your opponent. The ranged creeps do 25 physical damage per attack, and if your opponent has 8 or so built up that's an additional 200 damage you'll take per attack wave.

 

[HumblePie]

I would quibble a little with the sentiment that you should 'never' push your lane.

For me, the ideal lane is where your opponent has ONE more creep than you do. This means that their creeps will always be pushing, but not too much. So, instead of always last-hitting, I will try to equalize out the # of creeps up til the opponent only has one or two more creeps in the lane (when a fresh batch of creeps arrive). This will keep you comfortably nearer to your tower.

The reason I say this is because if your opponent does something stupid and gets punished, their creeps can actually make the difference between your opponent killing you, or you killing your opponent. The ranged creeps do 25 physical damage per attack, and if your opponent has 8 or so built up that's an additional 200 damage you'll take per attack wave.

Evening out the creep wave is not pushing though. But the thing is, I prefer to be by my tower though than theirs or even in the middle. That means if I decide to go after them or someone from my team comes to gank then the enemy has a long way to go for safety. The closer they are to their tower, the shorter a run they have.

Also, I do sometimes extra hit to even out the wave but only when I need the health. Most characters either have some built in health regen or I pick up an item at the start to give that to me. So there are reasons to do a few hits here and there which aren't last hitting only. But if you look, I never said ONLY to last hit. I stated emphatically to NEVER push. That is a different absolute. Even then it has a qualifier of never pushing during the early part of the game. Obviously that completely changes in the later part of the game.

Every time I play a game and I see the other person I'm laning with pushing makes me want to bang my head against the wall. If you ever watch high elo games, they do not push. Most high elo games go for a very long time because people know that to push invites mistakes and death. So no one pushes in the early part of the game at all. They harass and last hit as much as possible though. The reason being is because that the best winning strategy to take in this game. You can not win by pushing early, but you can lose. That is what people don't understand.

 

[alkemyst]

lot's of butthurt level 20+ tonight most with owned chars. Immediately cry when someone like me (just turned level 15) dies and start with the 'why you feeding?'

One dude Kofax starts whining how he's going to report people...level 29 whiner.

jesus...


Also what's with those that join a game and just go afk the whole time...do they get experience still?

 

[Obsoleet]

No one really commented on my runebuilds, but I'm very confident in my choices so I purchased a full set of T3s (I'm lvl 25) of what I wanted for my casters. Modified my choices a little bit, but I think I have the best runeset for most casters and my playstyle.

Now I'm going to start working on a melee build. Leaning towards this, mainly for a Mundo/Katarina/Olaf. That's why I'm leaning against health as much as I know Mundo would benefit from it greatly.
Mark of Desolation x9
Seal of Evasion x9
Glyph of Focus x9
Quint of Desolation x3

this is with (Mundo) 0/22/8 masteries (to help with survivability), item build: Ninja Tabi>Spirit Visage>Youmuu's Ghostblade>Sunfire Cape>Sunfire Cape>Warmog's. My fear is that someone with Mandreds will eat me alive so I've considered dropping the Warmog's.

 

[LurkerPrime]

No one really commented on my runebuilds, but I'm very confident in my choices so I purchased a full set of T3s (I'm lvl 25) of what I wanted for my casters. Modified my choices a little bit, but I think I have the best runeset for most casters and my playstyle.

Now I'm going to start working on a melee build. Leaning towards this, mainly for a Mundo/Katarina/Olaf. That's why I'm leaning against health as much as I know Mundo would benefit from it greatly.
Mark of Desolation x9
Seal of Evasion x9
Glyph of Focus x9
Quint of Desolation x3

this is with (Mundo) 0/22/8 masteries (to help with survivability), item build: Ninja Tabi>Spirit Visage>Youmuu's Ghostblade>Sunfire Cape>Sunfire Cape>Warmog's. My fear is that someone with Mandreds will eat me alive so I've considered dropping the Warmog's.

More people would probably comment on your rune builds if you listed the stats for the runes in place of the names. I for one don't know the names of any of my runes, I just look at the stats.

As for your Mundo build, you're probably looking at what 4.5K hp? but you're only going to have an extra 90 armor and +30 MR. With your low MR and high HP, Madreds will destroy you. (a kogmaw with a madreds would make you look like a squishy). Since it seems like the majority of damage done in the game is magic, a Force of Nature would probably work out better in most circumstances than the Warmogs. The +74MR, move speed and extra regen is really nice.

I've also never been a fan of Sunfire Capes, for the 5K you spent on those you could get the same results with a thornmail and warmogs and that way you'de be able to stand up to some melee characters much better. Although I guess with Mundo the sunfires + Burning Agony can make being next to you more than just an annoyance.

I've never played Mundo, so just look at my suggestions as things to maybe try out. I do however know that cleaver is rediculous for harassing in the laning phase and I can't stand laning against a Mundo on any melee char.

 

[zebano]

1. Preach on Humble! Pushing lanemates are so frustrating that I am on essentially on a LoL hiatus. I always jungle if no one else on my team does and there is nothing more frustrating than hitting level 4 with a clear jungle and not being able to gank and it's even worse if you're laning with the person whose pushing since you know one of you is going down when their jungler rolls around (then the team will accuse you of feeding).

2. Mundo/Sunfires - I like 1 of them, it's a good HP/Armor combo and the passive is just gravy. If you're buying 2 of them you really don't need Warmogs. I agree with Lurker that you need some MR, however the MR / Armor balance shouldn't be set in advance it should be decided by what heroes you're playing against and what you buy first should also be influenced by who your playing / laning against (characters like Annie are terrors early but less worrisome late unless fed and making your first item the small MR item can save your ass + it builds into mercury treads). Always build in response to the enemy (though if you're a carry you pretty much need that BF sword / big damage item first)

 

[LurkerPrime]

Just curious Zeb, what character(s) do you usually jungle with. I'm looking for a different jungler besides Olaf, and don't know if i want to get amumu or schaco.

 

[zebano]

Just curious Zeb, what character(s) do you usually jungle with. I'm looking for a different jungler besides Olaf, and don't know if i want to get amumu or schaco.

Amumu works, but he's still a common ban. I actually like jungling Rammus best of all, WW is still one of the best junglers out there. I'll run any of Rammus, Malphite, Udyr, Nunu or WW through the jungle. I want to pick up shaco since he's a great jungler and can vary things by getting red at level 2 and immediately ganking the nearest lane rather than jungle until level 4 when he has both buffs and then gank. Some thoughts:

===Good Junglers====

Olaf: Grade A: Technically doesn't need smite but jungles very quickly with or without blue buff, with reasonable safety. His only Weakness is that he needs to hit with his axe for the slow. Has the option to take dragon at 4 with help.

Amumu: Grade A: Requires blue buff for a quick jungle, but can defeat dragon in 5:15 or less if it isn't warded. He is extremely prone to being ganked until his first trip back.

Nunu: The Safest jungler out there due to his consume. His ice ball is a great slow and can build for damage (CDR before AP) or tank and starts with the AP book and build it into a soulstealer since it's so hard to kill him. Dragon is possible at 6 with level 2 consume.

Rammus: Another extremely safe jungler who is very fast and has massive CC (taunt and PB) making ganks easy if your laner can do any damage at all. No dragon until help/ level 7 + razor

Warwick: Can technically jungle w/o smite (not recommended because it's slow). my only complaint is lack of CC until he gets his ult. Can dragon at 4.

Udyr: I jungle him mainly because his lane phase sucks soooo much. That said he is the most reliant on blue buff for mana (twice as bad as Amumu). If he doesn't have it he can sit in turtle for life steal and still jungle but it is really slow. His high points are that bear / turtle make his a very safe champion with the CC needed to gank well. No dragon until about level 8.

Malphite: Very safe due to his passive, but just doesn't deal enough damage to clear creeps quickly until level 3. His q does make ganks effective (it's like olaf's axe without the need to aim).


Fiddlesticks: A great jungler due to drain (once again you can skip smite but it's not advised). making him safe while his fear + drain combo makes him a good ganker who becomes godly with his ult. My main complaint is that with the current metagame unless you do great his power wanes later-game (14+) when your ult just makes you a target (better players than me can time this well) though fear + darkwind provide great support / poking ability to a team. I've personally accomplished a level 3 dragon kill though it is so slow I don't recommend it without flat AP runes and I believe level 2 is technically possible (it used to be for sure I'm not sure in the current iteration of the game).


Lesser Junglers:
Xin - He has the right passive but not enough DPS early (use q for damage)

Nasus - Since you kill fewer creeps (and you're going for speed) in the jungle you actually lose the ability to properly farm your 'q' though once again passive lifesteal makes this not too difficult.

Morgana: Passive Spell vamp + AOE spell works in the jungle but she's such a terror in the lane that there is simply no reason to do this.

Tryndamere: Typically people will get to level 3 for 2 points in 'q' then jungle with him however 'q' has a 1.5 AP ratio so if you waste some blue runes on flat AP he can jungle from level 1.

Irelia: I'm not writing her off yet but all the ones I've seen are very slow.

Sion: Once again slow and he ends up getting his shield or HP destroyed while also needing enrage for damage and stun for ganking....

All the ranged AD carries/Mages : Why would you jungle them when you have a great laneing presence?

==Final Thoughts ==

If you run a lot of games with friends I highly suggest trying a double jungle though this requires that yoru team have solo-capable character for the lanes. It's a lot of fun to go golems > Ancient Golem > Gank > Gank enemy jungler. Usually the enemy team starts teamfighting around level 4 which totally changes the dynamic of the game. Nunu + a high DPS characer works well.


I'm very frustrated with the game and on a massive losing streak so I won't be playing this week.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Good info Humble. Being new to the game, I still fight the urge to push early..

One question I have is whats with the banning of chars/items in ranked. Seems kind of well...catering to peoples whims about who is op or not. From what I've seen, a "good" player can make any char OP.

 

[crownjules]

One question I have is whats with the banning of chars/items in ranked. Seems kind of well...catering to peoples whims about who is op or not. From what I've seen, a "good" player can make any char OP.

Only champs can be banned.

A good player can make any champ OP (or they can get fed and become OP). But due to the predominant strategy and/or having imbalanced abilities, there are champions who will be stronger choices. In your typical ranked game it's those who will be banned because what else do you have to go on? It's either that or pet peeves of the person banning. In competitive play, where you know who your opponent is ahead of time, you can do research and ban their best champs.

 

[alkemyst]

Heimer is a good jungler IMHO...I am usually in blues by L5 and taking the dragon right after.

From what I gather on champs and being OP it really has more to do with many that have a slight early advantage and use it to get fed.

I have been on MUDS in the past where every month was 'rebalancing' since one OP class got nerfed then another became the next OP. In the arena, it was usually whoever had the most experience with their character that won.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Thanks Zeb for the info on the junglers. I might pull WW back out and try jungling with him again. Last time i tried I think I was around lvl 15, so now at lvl 30 with a fair share of t3 runes it might make things a hell of alot easier.

I'm sorry about your losing streak. I've been avoiding ranked games lately since it seems the chances of me winning one of those is significantly less compared to a non-ranked solo game. I think I've lost the last 3 ranked games I've played, but I'm on a 5 game winning streak with olaf on unranked games.

Some characters are continously banned, because when used correctly, can lead to a very large advantage over the other team. For instance amumu is almost always banned due to his ult, the ult itself isn't super impresive, however it has this uncanny ability to make the rest of your team commit to a team fight when they see the yellow ring. This full commitment of your team rather than the ult is usually what results in a successful team battle.

Some champions abilities lend to them seeming more OP than others. In cases where the enemy team doesn't have a character that can counter, or they don't take into account the other team when buying items, it can seem to get out of hand. For instance if the other team is all slow squishies and none of them buy a thornmail, getting a triple kill or better with a slightly fed olaf is pretty easy. If they all had bought a thornmail, I might only get one of them before they kill me.

Its mostly the neglect of the other team to buy items to counter you. you'de be amazed how easy a twitch/eve is shut down with wards/oracle. Its funny killing an eve that has walked up right next to you when you have oracle, she doesn't even know what hit her most of the time.

 

[Obsoleet]

Whenever I ask people to stop pushing the lane, I've never had anyone not listen. Usually when I take top or bottom by myself vs 2, our jungler will pop out and kill creeps which I don't appreciate much obviously. They think they're helping. If the creeps get close to the tower and I sense they are going to go for a kill on me, I'll wipe them out with an AOE and turret hug till the next wave.

More people would probably comment on your rune builds if you listed the stats for the runes in place of the names. I for one don't know the names of any of my runes, I just look at the stats.

As for your Mundo build, you're probably looking at what 4.5K hp? but you're only going to have an extra 90 armor and +30 MR. With your low MR and high HP, Madreds will destroy you. (a kogmaw with a madreds would make you look like a squishy). Since it seems like the majority of damage done in the game is magic, a Force of Nature would probably work out better in most circumstances than the Warmogs. The +74MR, move speed and extra regen is really nice.

I've also never been a fan of Sunfire Capes, for the 5K you spent on those you could get the same results with a thornmail and warmogs and that way you'de be able to stand up to some melee characters much better. Although I guess with Mundo the sunfires + Burning Agony can make being next to you more than just an annoyance.

I've never played Mundo, so just look at my suggestions as things to maybe try out. I do however know that cleaver is rediculous for harassing in the laning phase and I can't stand laning against a Mundo on any melee char.

Thanks. I didn't list the specs because I have them mostly memorized from reading sites about them.
Mark of Desolation x9 +1.66apen
Seal of Evasion x9 +0.75% dodge
Glyph of Focus x9 -0.65% cooldowns
Quint of Desolation x3 +3.33apen

My theory here is that you can't have enough armor pen for physical DPS, and makes you pretty lethal early game- as well as helps as well as anything throughout the rest of the game. Dodge works well with the Nimbleness mastery (10% speed increase for 5sec after a dodge), and is decent for avoiding physical dmg on someone who's tankish or will be beat on like one. I'm not crazy about damage resist specific runes though, as I prefer to customize my item build based on the other team (and dodge doesn't work against targeted spells). That said, this runebuild should work great on any non-mage from what I know.
At first I went all for CDR, but I have a feeling that sounds better in theory than in-game so I scrapped that idea. My Mundo build has >30% CDR with my item choices anyway, and I sacrifice too much to hit the 40.

On casters, I'm have no problem with less mpen (and more AP) if they have a high AP coefficient. But on physical dmg, it seems you can't get enough apen no matter what. At least the amount here, isn't anything extreme.

 

[zebano]

Whenever I ask people to stop pushing the lane, I've never had anyone not listen. Usually when I take top or bottom by myself vs 2, our jungler will pop out and kill creeps which I don't appreciate much obviously. They think they're helping. If the creeps get close to the tower and I sense they are going to go for a kill on me, I'll wipe them out with an AOE and turret hug till the next wave.



Thanks. I didn't list the specs because I have them mostly memorized from reading sites about them.
Mark of Desolation x9 +1.66apen
Seal of Evasion x9 +0.75% dodge
Glyph of Focus x9 -0.65% cooldowns
Quint of Desolation x3 +3.33apen

My theory here is that you can't have enough armor pen for physical DPS, and makes you pretty lethal early game- as well as helps as well as anything throughout the rest of the game. Dodge works well with the Nimbleness mastery (10% speed increase for 5sec after a dodge), and is decent for avoiding physical dmg on someone who's tankish or will be beat on like one. I'm not crazy about damage resist specific runes though, as I prefer to customize my item build based on the other team (and dodge doesn't work against targeted spells). That said, this runebuild should work great on any non-mage from what I know.
At first I went all for CDR, but I have a feeling that sounds better in theory than in-game so I scrapped that idea. My Mundo build has >30% CDR with my item choices anyway, and I sacrifice too much to hit the 40.

On casters, I'm have no problem with less mpen (and more AP) if they have a high AP coefficient. But on physical dmg, it seems you can't get enough apen no matter what. At least the amount here, isn't anything extreme.

I like your choices for Garen/Mundo / non mana using DPSer. With mana you could consider MP5/lvl yellows though dodge may still be better. You could change the quints to flat HP if you so desired but that is a personal preference, I personally bought them because I like the extra survivability early on coupled with the fact that I don't need to buy separate quints for AP and AD champs.

 

[Obsoleet]

I like HP runes, at least over damage-specific resist. I personally don't want them unless its a HP-spellbased specific build, but I don't think I could go wrong with them either. I like to put the pressure on 100%, and the Desolation quints get them down to about 0AR. The last few games my cousin and I have starved our lane opposition out of XP entirely. The team either starts trying to gank us, or 1 of them abandons his buddy to the lane by himself.
What really makes me mad, is when the whole team is in our lane, facing 3 or 4 champs, and somehow the rest of our lanes aren't pushing. Eventually we fall to nearly their whole team being in our lane of course, and nothing got done elsewhere.

I've tried to create 2 full runepages, 1 that works for melee+non-mana/mana, and another for caster+non-mana/mana. That's why I've avoided damage resists, as well as mana regen.

My favorite champ is Anivia, and my caster page works perfect for her.. because she is so mana starved that no amount of runes will fix it. Why try? She requires rushing Tear + Golem if you really want to use a lot of burst damage (which I do of course and my build ends up at 18 with +717AP, squishies die on contact if I hit the initial stun). Without Golem, Clarity keeps her going well. My theory behind Anivia (which works well for me) is that since she requires a lot of micro and care in playing, you have to be very judicial in your moves. Instead of fix her weaknesses (survivability), I play into her strengths (amazing DPS, CC and overall utility). I use her egg as well as possible too, always trying to go down next to the tower. Keeps me alive and greedy noobs dying. Since I'm used to playing relatively safe with her, I survive just as well and do amazing damage.

Down the road, picking up a set of MP5/lvl yellows will be done for champs like Ashe, who can pretty much have her mana problems solved that easily and really allow me to create a perfect page for certain champs.

 

[HumblePie]

I've been jungling with Xin a lot lately, so I know how to do well with him. Still, he's a slower jungler than others. The best are Warwick and Shaco in my opinion. Followed my Olaf and Amumu (with blue buff). After that most of the chars in my opinion are about the same speed but need different setups.

For jungle xin I use ArmPen Marks, Flat Armor Seals, CDR Glyphs (though I could probably do better), and Health Quints. I go 9/21/0 for my masteries. My summoner skills are Smite and Ghost. I always pick Q for my first skill which is three talon strike. For my starting items I go with 5 health potions and 1 elixir of agility. That elixir is where I differ from the standard cloth armor of other jungler chars. Without that elixir Xin can not keep up in terms of jungle clearing speed to level 4. Getting that elixir is a double edge sword once Xin reaches 4 as I'll explain later.

I start off jungling with the blue golem with Xin. I pop the elixir, Q, and then hit the golem with smite. I start wailing away and press my health pot as soon as possible (which sometimes takes a second due to lag or something). I hit Q as fast as it comes up. Soon as the big golem is dead I kill the other two lizards and still should have my pot going for them. I won't be quite level 2 after killing that camp though. So I move on to wolves. Before I attack I wait a second or two for my Q to be up for use and start in with it. I kill the big brown wolf first and use my second health potion soon as the last hit of my three talon strike is over. Once the brown wolf is dead I will hit level 2 and get a rank in W, which is my warcry for speed and cooldown reduction on my other skills. I then use both W and Q to finish off the two smaller wolves.

After wolves I make my way to wraiths. I should be near full life at this point, but this is the biggest problem with jungling. If the person on your team at mid lane is too close he will steal your exps from the wraith spawn. I usually ask them to move to the far side of the tower if they are hugging the tower. That way I get full exps. Once they do and my skills are ready to go, I pop Q (not W yet) and start on the big blue wraith. I hit a health potion soon as I start on the wraiths. During wraiths my smite will come back, but I do not use smite on the wraiths. Soon as my three talon strike finishes the last hit I then hit W (warcry) to speed up my attack speed and give me a second off my cooldown of my Q for every attack I make so I can use my Q faster. I do this to finish the wraith spawn.

Next I move on to the Red Lizard spawn with 2 health pots left. Assuming I lost no exps while killing the wraiths I can make level 3 simply by killing one smaller lizard first before attacking the red lizard. I have smite handy, but I do not use it to kill a small lizard. I pop Q and go for a small lizard. The moment I kill a small lizard and hit level 3, I run away a short distance to shake the other two creeps off me. I then put a point in Q again to make three talon strike hit harder. I then wait for the cooldown on my Q to be ready for use again. Once it is, I start on the Red Lizard with smite and Q. Again when Q finishes I pop W. I alternate back and forth to finish the spawn. I also use one of my remaining two health pots I have available.

Once the Red lizard spawn is dead, I should be close to level 4 with full mana, 1 health pot, both buffs, and a little over half health (little more health if I got lucky with crits). I move on to the mini golem spawn and clear them out while using my last health potion. After clearing the mini golems I will hit level 4 if no experience was stolen at the wraith camp. Now I have a decision to make. I'll explain each possible choice that can be made. Also I should have around 750 gold.

1) I can go gank. This is usually the best choice. However, this is easier to do if I start in the blue jungle versus the purple jungle. That is because I'll be close to the bottom lane when I finish the mini golems. I'll have both buffs and my elixir still going. I will be level 4 and everyone at the bottom should still be level 3. Assuming the bottom lane has not pushed up to the enemy tower this is as easy gank. If I chose to gank I put my level 4 skill point into my E for my charge ability to make the gank easier. I start making my way over there and pop ghost the moment I come around the bend. I then use my charge and do as much damage to either the squishiest, lowest life, or character the most over extended. Or if someone on the bottom helps with a stun or other CC. If I get lucky I get a kill. If I get really lucky I get two kills. However, I don't mind settling for an assist or two either.

Possible gold outcomes are 300 for a kill, or 150 for an assist. If I go in for a gank I need to get at least the assist or it's a waste. I do not want to return back to base without having 1000 gold. Even with the assist I have to kill 2 minions to make that by the time I port back. Not hard to get though as the lane should be clear of enemy champs for the moment after a gank.

Now if I am in purple jungle I have a hard decision of where to gank. I can help gank top or mid lane. If both are solo, they will be level 5's on the verge of level 6 while I'm still level 4. It is still doable with help of the other person in the lane, but the enemy can not be pushed to their tower, and the ally champ needs to have some form of CC available (exhaust will work).

The double edge sword I spoke of with chosing elixir at the beginning is this, I MUST have 1000g before I recall to get madreds. If I started with cloth armor, I would have enough gold the moment I cleared out the jungle to get it. By having the elixir first, I do not have the needed gold for madreds to continue jungling feasibly much longer. So I have to make one of the below options count.

2) Go to the enemy jungle! Once my jungle is clear and a gank doesn't look likely, I can make my way over to the enemy jungle. This is only an option if the other team doesn't have a jungler. Otherwise, this can be suicide for me at this point. If there is no enemy jungler, grabbing their blue golem again while I have all my buffs and elixir running still with smite is easy enough to do as I should be near full life after doing mini golems and using my last health pot. Then I can clear everything else in their jungle except red before porting back to base.

3) Start moving my way back to wolves to reclear the lesser spawns in my jungle. This will get me to level 5 at least and get me to the 1000 gold I need. If I start heading back to wolves after killing the mini golems, they should be respawning right then. I can then clear out wraiths and mini golems again. If I do option 2 or 3 I picked another level of Q for my level 4 point instead of E since I don't need the charge attack for creeps unlike ganks.

4) Help out a lane that needs to head back. Sometimes one lane needs help, especially if they just survived (or didn't) a gank attack by the enemy team. At which point I need to make my way over to that lane and hold it for a bit. If I do, then I put my level 4 skill point into E incase I need it.


In either case, after I hit 1000+ gold I head back to base and buy madreds razors. If I only have a little extra gold over that I buy at least one health pot but up to three. If I have enough for madreds and a vamp scepter I get that. I also buy 1 ward to place on the dragon spawn after I kill it (or before if the other team pushes me off the kill). Then I head over to dragon. This should be about the 7-8 minute mark if things went well. If I had to hold a lane a little bit longer it could be later. If things went really well I can start in on dragon right at the 5 minute mark if I did a double gank on bottom, got both kills, and have 1 or both bottom lane people on my team come help.

Anyhow, Xin is not the fastest jungler but he can do the job. His biggest problem is that he is easy meat in the jungle if the other team decides to come looking for you. If a warwick or olaf or shaco come for me into my jungle I could be very dead without help. Then again, if my team mates are paying attention, they could be just as dead.

Now I've tried the cloth armor instead of the elixir with Xin and it is doable, but abysmally slow. I can not gank at level 4, and I have to recall sooner as my damage output is just not enough. Xin's main form of burst damage comes from his E skill (the charge) if I'm in the lane. The problem is, this skill is not feasible in the jungle. It sucks up way too much mana compared to his other skills versus the damage output it does. It also has a longer cooldown. Xin's base attack is pretty low starting out as well. I've tried a bit beefier xin with 21 in the assault mastery tree, but then he gets pummeled by the creeps too fast and it is even worse. The extra damage output does not help him jungle or late game I've found compared to what he gets from the defensive tree.


This has been my guide to jungling Xin though. Once you have madreds razor and a vamp scepter you don't need health pots anymore. I personally then purchase basic boots, recurve bow, complete my tier 2 boots, and then go for madreds. I pick up a ward for the dragon as well when I can which helps both bottom and mid lanes.



The basic jungling principle I described applies to most junglers, they just use different skills, runes, and masteries. Everyone though reaches level 4 when they clear out the jungle. The trick is to clear it out faster than the bottom than can reach level 4 as well by. Shaco and Warwick can be fast enough to clear the jungle completely and be level 4 before the bottom lane has hit level 3 even. That can be a huge factor when it comes to ganking. One last point, if you are in a lane in the early part of the game DO NOT PUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111oneoneone!!!

 

[zebano]

Well I ended my 7 game losing streak (and 5-21 overall for the past couple of weeks) by playing AP Sion with a rammus, WW, janna and galio team and roflstomped all over my enemies. I can' remember the last time I went 13/2/19 =)

leleleleLegendary!

Final build: Lich bane, Merc Treads, Abysall Scepter, Nashors tooth (I was fed so I went hybrid), Chain Vest, Cloak of Agility.... if only I had that Atma's

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/1518/roflw.jpg
Largest Killing Spree: 12 =)

/brag