Lessons learned from Season Three roles

I am working on a detailed analysis of changes to masteries, but since Season Three is officially over and, by all accounts, roles will be fundamentally altered, I wanted to do a write a small homage to what playing each roles has taught us—as well as some advice on what to practice in the off season.

There's been a rash of people who specialize since the professional scene picked up speed and exposure.  Very few top players are jacks of all trades these days who can play any role well or better than anyone else.  Examples that people list are often Madlife, Voyboy, or Xpecial, but often, if you ask these players, they'll tell you that's flat out wrong.

Well.  Maybe not Madlife.

While I'm not much of a comedian, I'd say that certain types of players gravitate toward each role, but I don't even think that's the case.  I think the habit of constantly playing the role of your choice will develop certain skill related to the game while others stagnate.  For example, AD carry mains often claim they have worse game knowledge and higher mechanical skill because the champions they play typically aren't play-makers, but they rely on the player's ability to get out of CC-locks or get in range to do damage when they probably shouldn't be able to do so.

I don't really agree with the title, since he gets hit by everything, but he still rightclicks the fuck out of bitches.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about why you need to know how to play every role before you can advance to a high enough level to specialize.  Namely, why you probably shouldn't "main" a role until you've absorbed valuable lessons from each one.

Marksman teaches mechanics

The Marksman role has taught us mechanics.  Since this set of champions doesn't typically do the most burst damage—yes, I know this is a Graves clip—they can't rely on blowing all their cooldowns to do as much damage as quickly as possible before dying.  These guys have to stay alive throughout the entire fight to maximize their destructive capability, which means, generally, avoiding getting hit and continuing to attack at the same time.

To add to this, AD, Crit chance, and attack speed are some of the more expensive stats per point in the game, with AD being twice the price of AP (I'm using LoL Wiki calculations here, though I think the true prices of AD and AP are different, and I'll get to that in a future entry).  So they also have to be able to get really high creep scores in order to be effective.

I chose this clip because, even when Captain Jack doesn't avoid the Lay Wastes and stands in Defile, or gets knocked up by Blitzcrank, he continues to move and do damage.  At the end, he even gets the farm.  This is good right-clicking.  He is constantly moving and putting out damage.  This nets him a double kill even after Lustboy shits the bed.

By all accounts, this role is looking less important in Season Four (Doublelift has mentioned that he'd consider switching roles, but he also said that last season), so it's worth mentioning here that this role requires some heavy mechanics to master.  That's why, if you want to improve your mechanical skill or your creep score, play some normals as an AD carry.  You won't make the plays, but you'll get better at farming, dodging, and delivering the sustained damage, or you'll force your entire team to lose.

This is useful in all roles for obvious reasons.  Having a good creep score is important in mid and bottom lane.  Dodging skill shots is a tool that will put you ahead in all roles.  Being able to dish out auto attacks can catch your lane opponents off guard and increase DPS output on any champion.  Of course, your auto attacks won't do as much damage as an AD carry's, but isn't that the point?  If there's more pressure on you to be mechanically skilled, you have to learn to do it quickly.  Then you can carry that ability over to other areas where it's still applicable, though not quite as pressure-intensive.

Support teaches you to play from behind

This one is less obvious.  Or perhaps more obvious.  I don't know.

Now, in the above example, Curse isn't behind, but they do end up losing the game!  Does that count?  No.  Well, the point is, that what Edward used to get a gold advantage here for his team was a ward, which cost him 75 gold.  This same play could have been made had Curse been 10,000 gold down.  In fact, it probably would have been easier to predict because supports are pretty much in baron pit warding it 24/7 after the fifteen minute mark.

As a support player, you will always have less gold than the rest of your team—with some notable exceptions, but in an ideal competitive environment in which you're all of equal skill level and doing your assigned job, you should have less gold than the rest of your team—which means that you need to be creative.  You need to find ways to not just be free food or caught out by the enemy when you're in baron pit.  You can't really 1v1 anyone in normal situations unless you're extremely smart, and they're extremely dumb, but that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Now please don't try to 1v1 your opponents as a support player, but if you get caught out by the enemy, some quick thinking can get you away or force them off you.  Your tools will be cheap—typically some wards, an oracle's elixir, and a pair of boots—but that doesn't mean that they can't net your team upwards of 300 gold.  Clever warding will create opportunities, and well-timed CC-locks can help out a teammate.  When you're in a situation where you are behind, you need to think more about what your champion is capable of instead of rushing headlong into someone else and relying on your ability to rightclick and your ten bloodthirsters to kill them.

Playing from behind is perhaps the most valuable skill you can pick up to advance in this game because, chances are, you will find that your team is falling behind at some point in your League life.  If you don't know where good places are to ward so you can get picks, how to escape from an extremely fed Riven, or how to utilize vision to retake control of an area, you're just going to fall further behind.  Practicing support is the best way to learn these skills because a good support thrives when they have less gold than pretty much everyone else in the game; he still manages to carry his useless team.  The best thing about this, of course, is that anyone can buy wards.  You don't have to be a support player to get your team crucial vision that will put them back in the game.  If you get a kill, you just spent -225 gold on your ward.  So think about that next time you type "0 wards OP" to antagonize a teammate, and for fuck's sake, play some support games.

Jungle teaches map awareness

If you assume what I mean by "map awareness" is the ability to look at the map more frequently, then you probably should play a few games in the jungle.  You'll figure out what map awareness really means or your entire team will bitch—and they'll have a right.

Matchups in lanes
Attention to timers
Position of enemy
Awareness

Understanding matchups in lanes can tell you which lane to pressure.  You don't want to waste time on a lane unless it has kill potential, typically, as that will cause you to fall behind.  Attention to timers will tell you which side of the map you should be on.  If the enemy blue buff is about to spawn, and you can contest it—again, a factor in understanding matchups; where is the advantage?—you should probably be on that side of the map.  If dragon is in play, you shouldn't show top, and if baron is in play, you shouldn't show bottom because you carry your team's smite, or objective secure tool.  Finally, knowing where your enemy jungler is going to gank—which of his lanes has kill potential—can allow you to turn a fight or create an advantage for your team on another part of the map.

In the clip, bengi knows that his team has an advantage in an upcoming altercation because SKT will have a numbers advantage and an items advantage since they are ahead.  He was aware of the timer on his own red buff better than Watch, the enemy jungler, as he had just completed it before the clip began.  He also knew the position of the enemies because of the ward and vision on bottom lane, so he could choose that opportunity to engage.  He even landed a blind Resonating Strike—no pun—because of how well he could guess where Watch and Expession might be and the angle of approach they would take. 

As a jungler in Season Three, one would always ask himself which of his lanes and the enemy team's lanes had kill potential pre and post level 6, where the enemy jungler was, and when would be the best time to pressure early objectives like dragon and buffs.  If he couldn't get a handle on that, he would lose control of the map, and his team would fall behind.

There are obvious reasons why this skill is most crucial to a good jungler, but there are also obvious reasons why this skill is applicable to other roles.  If you know matchups, timers, and the position of the enemy jungler, you can make calls and help your jungler make plays, instead of relying upon him to do it for you.  I have a feeling that, in Season Four, this skill will be even more important due to increased roaming and more gold to be had outside lanes, so if you were a Season Three jungle main, you might have an advantage.

Top teaches dueling and fight-picking

Season Two was pretty much all about top laners and AD carries.  Season Three was about mid lane and jungle—it's likely Season Four will be, too, but hey—yet some teams with highly skilled top laners still formed teams around their picks.  The reasoning behind this is that the top lane pick will easily determine which type of team composition is used in a game.  The two types of champions played in top lane in Season Three were almost exclusively fight-initiating tanks and high-damage split-pushers capable of coming out ahead in duels.

Or sometimes a bit of both.

I really wanted to find a clip from MVP Blue Cheonju's Rumble in the finals for 2013 WCG Qualifier, and I'm honestly shocked no one has taken it and uploaded it, but Balls will more than suffice.  In this clip, Balls landed some very nice Rumble ults that both game him an advantage in duels (specifically, a 2v1) and completely controlled fights when paired with Meteos' Zac and LemonNation's Zyra.

Even though the game, of late, at the highest level of play has been more about avoiding fights and taking advantage of teams being out of position to take free objectives, champions in the top lane are designed more than any other to fight.  In the split push style of composition, the top laner will stay in the top lane, defeating anyone who comes to oppose him 1v1 while his team pressures other parts of the map.  In the team fight style, the top lane must know when to initiate, either with a well-timed ultimate, or simply being tanky enough to dive into five members and cause disruption—most often still with a well-timed ultimate.

Because of this, top lane, more than any other Season Three role, taught us how to test the limits of our champions, when was a good time to distract attention in another lane, and when was a good time to start a fight over dragon by teleporting bottom.  Playing top lane gives you the tools to initiate winning fights, so knowing how to pick them is crucial.

Another good thing about this clip, of course, is that most the campions on Balls' team had some sort of AoE initiation tool—with the notable exception of Hai's Zed—so it's clear how this knowledge translates to other roles.  Tools to start fights aren't exclusive to top lane, but top lane is all about starting fights, so playing a lot of solo top will force you to develop those skills and force you to learn when you can beat someone in a duel and when your team should fight.

Mid lane teaches pressure

 I struggled with this at first, since I believe all the skills I've mentioned so far are very important to a good midlaner.  Mid is in the center of the map, must farm a lot of gold and outplay an opponent, must roam, must help secure objectives, often comes with some form of initiation, whether its deleting a member of the enemy team or using an AoE ultimate, and should probably know how to ward and come back from behind.



But the midlaner was in a very unique position in Season Three.  Being in the center of the map, he has nearly as easy access to all objectives as the jungler.  In addition, he'll have as much gold as the other farming roles: mid and top.  This means that, when he shows up in a lane, he brings damage and almost certain death for the enemy laner.  His presence in an attempted buff steal will easily force the enemy team away if he is ahead or their mid laner is not also present.  

This means that the mid laner has the highest potential to create map pressure.  In the above clip, taken from Korean solo queue, Faker creates pressure in several ways.  First, he deletes Karthus from the map, creating an opportunity for his team to take Baron.  Second, he fends off Thresh and Tristana's approach by zoning them away from his team, which has two low health members: Rumble and Lulu.  This splits the team and lets his team take the buff and a kill on Kennen.  Then, at extremely low health, he pulls Lee Sin and Tristana top, which 1) lets his low health teammates escape, and 2) draws them away from the wave of blue team minions pushing bottom.  To top it off, his nice mechanics and kiting net him two more kills.

Now, one can argue that top was the only place that he could conceivably go, and the fact that bottom was pushing was just lucky, but if the enemy team didn't chase him, they could have easily just backed or gone on the rest of Faker's team.  Since he is such a powerful Lissandra, and putting him on a death timer would be so beneficial for the enemy team, he could force them to chase him over meeting other goals.

A good mid laner understands that he has a great deal of power and easy access to most of the map, so he must decide where this pressure is best used.  That means that, if the enemy mid laner is roaming, he is applying pressure, and you need to decide how to counter this.  Pressure sounds very similar to MAP Awareness, but the difference is that, if your jungler shows up to a fight, his low gold totals make him less of a threat than a mid laner with 200 farm and a Deathfire Grasp that can instantly annihilate a single member of the enemy team.  As a mid laner, you need to understand pressure and where to put it.  This will put you in good stead throughout your League of Legends lifetime.

TL;DR

In Season Four, roles may change drastically, so it's important to remember the individual lessons they taught us through Season Three.  Regardless of where the game goes, it's hard to imagine that any of these tools will be less valuable, so take the opportunity in the off season to practice up.  Pick your weakest skill, and head to the rift to practice the corresponding role.  You'll thank yourself later.

Veigar can support, stop laughing!: a discussion for Veigar in bot lane

We watched Annie throughout the past season of Chinese LPL, and when Tabe brought her to the Season Three World Championships, and bans continued to be flung his way, it wasn't a surprise that she started popping up all over the world.  Solo queue has seen a rash of Annie supports, but Annie wasn't the only off-meta support China tried out.

OMG's bigpomelo played Veigar support in a somewhat troll match against Lemondogs.  They didn't run an AD carry.  But with Curse Academy and Taipei Assassins consistently running Marksman-less compositions, you have to wonder just how "troll" other aspects of OMG's composition are.  In particular, I look at Veigar support and advocate his use in bottom lane.

Assumptions
Annie is viable in the support role.	This discussion relies upon a comparison between Veigar and Annie; ie, Veigar is useful because Annie is useful.
Annie is useful because of her lane zone control, high early burst damage, and AoE stun initiation.	If you think she should be used for any other reason, this probably won't convince you of anything.

The purpose there is, obviously, to make sure you aren't wasting your time!

The AoE Initiation Argument

Accurate representation.

The biggest reason to choose Annie is her AoE stun initiation with Tibbers.  The argument for Veigar is that he can accomplish the same thing—AoE stun initiation—at a lower cooldown.  Consider max level Event Horizon has a 16 second cooldown vs a Tibbers at 120.  The duration of max level Event Horizon stun is a full 2.5 seconds (and the obstruction remains on the rift for three full seconds), while Annie's passive only grants her 1.75.  In addition, because Tibbers' range is 600, many support Annies must burn flash to get a good initiation, while Veigar's event horizon has 650 range from the center with a 375 radius.  Even if it lands around the target and not on the target, it provides important disengage for a full three seconds, similar to a Zyra ult (except its area is active for only two seconds).  This means he doesn't really have to flash to use it, and the zone it creates is larger.

So consider Annie cooldown for her safe AoE initiation is going to be two to five minutes.  As opposed to Veigar's 16 seconds.  Every 16 seconds, you can also pretty much do free damage to a turret by trapping an enemy with Event Horizon.  It's much easier to siege that way.  Tibbers won't do this.

Now the obvious argument is that Annie's ult also does damage when it lands, while Event Horizon doesn't.  This is important.  But the tradeoff is, again, the longer duration and the large area that provides disengage in addition to engage.  Considering the fact that Annie won't have much damage built on her in the support role, generally your sustained damage carries, who actually build damage,  will be able to more than compensate for the damage she does with the extra duration.

Some examples from Diamond support Veigar games:

Laning Damage

But damage is a factor, though I have slightly brushed it aside.  Annie brings damage to lane and the ability to zone with her stun and auto attack range.  Obviously, Veigar won't have the auto attack range Annie does.  His auto range is actually lower than most other popular supports in high level play.

Auto Attack Range
625	550	475	525	575

But when you consider the range on his spells and Annie's spells, his big AoE damage and wave clear will be his dark matter, which has a smaller radius, but it will still provide a lot of push potential and pressure or damage to champions caught in event horizon.  It also can provide vision and bring threat, but the base damage at level 1 will be 1.5*Annie's Incinerate.  It also has the same per level scaling on base damage.  So though support Veigars often level Event Horizon first, Annie won't be able to match its level 1 damage until she's level 4 (assuming she takes points in Molten Shield and Q to help charge her stun; as a disclaimer, I acknowledge that many support Annies don't do this).  And it only has two seconds longer on CD, so the dps from this ability will still be greater.

Spell	Damage	Scaling	CD	AoE
	80/130/180/230/280	75%	8	170,355.9
	120/170/220/270/320	100%	10	39,740.6

So let's talk q.  Since he won't be leveling it first, Baleful Strike has an 8 second cd for most of laning phase, and Annie will have a 4 second cd on Disintegrate.  These two spells are almost identical otherwise, except for things that pertain more to AP Annie and Veigar (getting AP on last hits, AP scaling differences, etc.,).  There are slight differences to range (Veigar favored, 25) and level one base (Annie favored, 5), but it does the same thing on 4 vs 8 cd in terms of damage.  Their uses, however, differ.  Annie will use it to initiate or disengage a jungler in lane more than she will use it specifically to do damage.  In this case, she will be dependent on full rotation cooldowns for the stun component.  Similarly, Veigar's slight spell range advantage allows him to use this more to harass.  Or he saves it for the initiate.  In which case, the use of both of these spells optimally is dependent on other cds, so their own cd differences are less relevant.

Spell	Damage	Scaling	CD	Range
	85/125/165/205/245	70%	4	625
	80/125/170/215/260	60%	8/7/6/5/4	650

Stun Cooldowns and Mana Costs

Specifically in Lane

The more important nuance, though, is the availability of stun during laning phase.  Stuns provide disengage upon the appearance of the enemy jungler, engage in 2v2s to derive an advantage, and zoning potential.  

Annie's stun will be up more frequently than the max level Event Horizon.  She has to cast 4 spells to get a stun.  Assuming all spells are available (level 3) and off cd, this means Annie casts all of them, then waits 4 seconds for disintegrate, then waits an additional 8 seconds for incinerate/another disintegrate.  So she must wait 8 seconds to initiate.  After she does this, she has to wait for cds again.  If she used Molten Shield recently, she could have to wait as long as 14 seconds to get a new stun.  8-14 seconds vs 16-20 is definitely an issue, but Veigar's Event Horizon, again, creates a larger zone as it has a longer cast range and area of effect, has a longer duration with 3 points (same duration with 2), and a bigger area of disruption.  This means his presence and threat when he hasn't cast it recently is larger, especially since Annie has an indicator for when she has stun up, and he doesn't (though there are ways to sneak this for Annie; this, in itself, can create an issue that will be covered and damages Annie's potential dps output).

In addition, 4 ability casts means that Annie's stun will cost ~280 mana (level 1 spells), while Veigar's Event Horizon is 80-120 (1-5).  So the cost of a stun is something to consider as well.  You can't stun a target every 8-14 seconds if you don't have 280 mana for it (370 at level 9 with maxed W!).

Stun mana cost
Level	1	3	6	9	18
	300	280	320-330*	360-370*	390-400*
	80	80-90**	100	120	120

*Skill level ordering and usage of Tibbers

**Depending on E,W,Q or E,W,E leveling

Also, in terms of damage on initiations, many Annies will Q, then W covertly while Q travels, to get a surprise initiation (if Molten Shield is on cooldown).  But if they're maxing W, this also means they blew their big damage on nothing and won't be able to use it on a stunned target.  Veigar will not have this problem.

Last, some might argue that, if Veigar doesn't catch someone on the border of his Event Horizon, it's a waste.  This isn't true.  If you create the zone and trap the enemy, your AD carry can still get free damage off if they're longer range or bait the enemy into walking into it in certain situations.  Missing Event Horizon, for this reason, is more of an issue on midlane Veigars who rely on hitting Dark Matter for damage.

Ults

I already mentioned the fact that having a larger area of disruption on a lower cd is big, but then we have to account for the damage Annie's ult does.  250/375/500 (1.2%) on single target with additional 80% enemy AP.  Annie's ult is AoE 200/325/450 (70%), with a 35 (20%) dot.  Dealing all that damage to a team is important, but at later levels, it matters a lot less, whereas Veigar's single target will continue to scale if the enemy team has an AP assassin.  

It means that, if your assassin or burst damage dealer is behind, you can likely still 100 to 0 someone on the enemy team with the burst damage dealer's combo and Veigar's ult, which is pretty powerful.  And he has 650 range on it.  Obviously, these ults are not the same, but to have a support that does damage that scales into late game is pretty nice and carves out a niche for Veigar that Annie doesn't necessarily have.

Safety

Briefly mentioned, Veigar's spell range keeps him safe while he does damage, which means he can do more damage, ultimately, and clear waves.  Every time Annie uses incinerate to clear waves, she has to be right in front of it, which makes her susceptible to damage. 900 range on Dark Matter means this isn't the case for Veigar.

Annie has 30 more base health at level 1, but Veigar's health will scale better into mid and late game, where burst damage from assassins and mids is a bigger problem.  He also has 4.25 more armor at level 1, which is actually kind of big.  Now, her molten shield is really nice, so I'll definitely give that to Annie.  But it won't give 60 free resistances until level 18 because she'll max it last.  Most the game, she only gets 20.  And this is easy to break through at her close range, while the distance Veigar keeps protects him.

Safety Factor
	20 (+10/level) resistances
	900 cast range 650 cast range on R 650 range on Q

When to use Veigar over Annie

Obviously, both supports are very similar in functionality, and I'm not saying Veigar is out-and-out better than Annie or vice versa.  Obviously, in a situation where there is no AP on the enemy team, Veigar loses a lot of usefulness.  Against our friend, Zed, the AD assassin terror, Annie might still be a better choice, especially since trapping him can be trickier.

But when should you use Veigar?  If you have a siege-focused composition, Veigar will be very strong.  His ability to catch people out at a distance to give Nidalee a free max range spear is invaluable.  In addition, if your AD will have a longer range than the enemy, trapping the opponent in a cage during laning allows Caitlyn and her ilk to get free pot shots for a three second time period, so Veigar is a great choice.

Veigar also works better than Annie if your team is in grave need of disengage.  If your mid laner is Gragas, this is less necessary, but if Veigar can accomplish what he can without forcing him to use his ult, that's extremely powerful.

And, as mentioned, Veigar will be very strong against mid lane AP assassins.  He almost provides something akin to a free DFG.  He's also very good paired with sustained damage, as three seconds creates a lot of time for that damage to be used.  He works with burst comps as well, but he has an edge over Annie in the damage over time game where long team fights are king.

TL;DR

Annie is useful for the burst of AoE damage she brings early and mid game alongside an AoE initiation.  It allows her to create zone threat and shove lanes.  Veigar has a larger zoning threat, comparable damage per second, and significantly lower initiation mana costs at slightly inflated cooldowns.

Annie provides longer autoattack ranges, but Veigar brings longer spell ranges.

Veigar's AoE initiation is on a lower cooldown, a wider radius, and also provides disengage and siege potential.  Though it doesn't bring damage, its longer duration provides more opportunity for allies who actually build damage to do damage and compensate.

Veigar's ult does single target damage that scales into late game with enemy assassin AP.

Annie's safety comes from Molten Shield's resistances, while Veigar keeps himself safe with long range spells and positioning.

Images and Numbers from League of Legends Wiki.
Credit to Froskurinn, who provided Veigar support in Diamond ELO vods.

Five things that might be big in Season Four

But please God.  No.

The purpose of this blog is to discuss some things I've thought about while reading professional players discuss their experiences with the new season patch.  I don't claim to be a professional player or to have experienced the changes myself, but I took this as more of a fun exercise.  Obviously, Riot has probably already considered many of the things I'm bringing up (well, maybe not jungle Karthus, specifically), and they have a corrective measure in place.  But I wanted to throw this out there anyway because it's a fun excuse to think about the game.

1. The Death of Traditional Supports

Madlife, pls.

I jokingly tell people that the only champions I can play are Sona and Udyr because they have no actual abilities, just methods of right clicking, and they can pick fights without actually having to be umm skilled, which is what I want to do most the time anyway.

But I'm not here to talk about my League of Legends prowess, or lack thereof, I'm hear to tell you about why Season 4 changes will likely be the death of Sona and her supporty friends.  A collection of posts by professional players who were able to test the new changes have discussed how the role of support will change.  World Elite's Misaya has said that support carrying has become huge, as assist streaks and mastery changes provide a great deal of gold without last hitting.  Xpecial, in his VLog, has explained that supports are being retooled so that utility scales with items, like Janna's shield AD bonus scaling with AP items.  He also says their income is eaten less by wards, as there is now a per-player ward purchase limit.

This sounds interesting, doesn't it?  But let me ask you a question.  CLG's poor performance when they funnel all gold into Doublelift, and the success of double assassin compositions and teams with multiple "carry" players has proven time and again that multiple damage threats are often better than propping up a single damage threat.  Why not run something that will, instead of making your marksman better at killing other things, be self-reliant and capable of eliminating a single target, like Leblanc?

No, Hotshot.  No one does.

If support carry is real, and damage on supports doesn't scale with items (like it doesn't already; please see Nami for "I run her AD in ARAM"), then this will encourage people to run champions with a little bit of utility—if Sona-esque initiation is necessary, please see Oriana or Ashe—that have damage that scales well with items.  Here are some of my picks for Season Four support leaders.

Since AD and attack speed are some of the most expensive items, it depends on just how much gold supports can get, or even if AD carries remain desirable (see point 3), but it could open up things like support Ashe or Sivir.  The verdict is also out on how tanky supports can build by optimizing the utility tree if support tanks are viable.  I swear to god, if I see Yorick in bottom lane, I will /ff at twenty.

2. Karthus Jungle

Few combinations of four words (is "R" a word?) fill me with such complete dread.  If Riot came to me and asked me to select a champion for them to delete from the game, there would be zero hesitation in my mind.

"Please Karthus, no."

Now, he had some balancing factors when he was run mid lane.  I have seldom heard of a Karthus acquiring first blood, and his ramp up time is ridiculous.  So though he can safely farm under tower, and his AoE discourages diving, it takes quite a bit for him to get to levels so ridiculous that he can eliminate an entire enemy team with a single button—while also being dead.  In addition, with an early diver like Aatrox, when Defile has low damage early, he is tasty food for his opponent.

But there has always been a deep, ingrained fear.  What if Karthus jungle were viable?  With decreased bonus gold for acquiring first blood before four minutes, earlier minions spawn times, and more priority for junglers to secure their own camps than to invade, as well as items to increase jungle creep gold by, perhaps, 40%, early destruction of enemy junglers is unlikely, and there is less emphasis on ganking than farming.

At first, this made me excited.  Season four changes will allow me to play my favorite mid lane champions, Oriana and Diana, outside mid lane in the support and jungle roles respectively.  But then I realized what this really means.

With these two tiny abilities and the safety that the new jungle provides, Karthus will make my game miserable.  I hope that after four minutes I can still invade on him as much as possible.  I will, for the love of god, pick Xin Zhao, even though the high gold scaling sounds like this will make him an even harsher waste of time in Season Four than he already is, and kill him before four minutes if I have to.

THANK YOU FOR THAT 250 GOLD KARTHUS MAY I HAVE ANOTHER.

I don't like this champion.  I don't want him in my jungle.  But if this game turns into what it sounds like, there will be no keeping him out.

3. Who needs an Ezreal?

For those with carpal tunnel.

I have suspected that Riot has been systematically reducing the effectiveness of another class of characters since the start of season three: the marksmen.  After creating a brand new and somewhat comical term for them, Riot has put another nail in their coffin.

Teams like Dragonborns, OMG, and TPA have already experimented with compositions that eliminate the need for a marksman with high scaling divers like assassins and Jax, as well as strong pokers like Nidalee and Oriana (why they haven't used Gragas yet is beyond me).  These have spread to the North American Challenger scene, where Curse Academy is gaining some recognition with it as well.

Season Four will make this more viable.  With more gold outside lanes, this will make the focus more on shoving and roaming.  Guess who's really bad at that?  Guess who really needs to stay in lane and farm?

Yeah, assholes who build attack speed and attack damage.  Some of the most expensive stats in the game.

But okay, there are still things about ranged AD carries that are important, and the compositions that TPA run are limited by a select pool of champions.

The biggest things that ADs bring are sustained damage and tower-killing potential.  With more gold for jungle and support roles, you can compensate your sustained damage with things like Kayle and Tryndamere.  Sure, Tryndamere is also hampered by attackspeed and AD, but he has tremendous wave clear on top of it.  You can also run Tryndamere more safely in the jungle now, without his early vulnerability being an impediment.

As for tower killing potential, remember our friend Baron Nashor?

Riot, this looks nothing like him.

He isn't going to be the same.  According to Misaya, Baron's bonus AD/AP/regen buff is being replaced by a Mobis-esque out of combat movement speed buff and a tower damage increase buff.  Apparently, Lich Bane Deathfire TF can now eliminate a tower with only two blue cards.

Someone please tell me what this means?  Well, it means the rise of Baron-taking teams featuring champions like Nunu, Cho'gath, Nasus, Elise, dare I mention Karthus, and other friends will give you the option of getting rid of the AD carry and still decimate towers with ease.

And finally, Curse Academy was stopped by the elimination of Fiddlesticks and Annie when many other wave clear options will exist on supports in the future (well, they already do, and there are TPA games with Ori and Janna to clear, and Zyra is definitely an option here).

So unless changes are made to AD carries, they'll be run more for utility (like Ashe) and Baron potential (BotRK Vayne).  Wave clear will probably be support based, what with the new minion execute item making it simpler, but that could give champions like Jinx, Cait, and Lucian and edge as well.  It will limit what can be played in that role even more, and I am sure there will be more focus on champion and objective killing items like IE and BotRK.

Goodbye, Bloodthirster Cait.  I hated thee well.  Please don thy Infinity Edge instead or ye shall surely perish.

4. WHERE HAS ALL THE RUM HAVE ALL THE LANES GONE?

Pic relevant.

I have briefly discussed this already, but laning—in the sense that two people on opposite teams sit where they are and face off for creeps and kills—will surely decline.  With more gold to be had out of lane (increased gold on dragons, etc., has been mentioned), we will see more roaming mid laners shoving and securing objectives.  And if mid can roam, so can bottom.  And top.  And if they need income, they can buy the new handy 40% bonus gold on monster kill item.  With the addition of a new small camp, that's one camp per team member with the support hanging out next to someone.

Seriously, Froggen.  Get out.  Mid lane is like ten screens away.

So that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but depending on just how much gold we're talking here and how much wave clear we can build on a team, there will be a lot of roaming.  Towers will go down to splits because teams will be more selective about who gets the last hit.  According to Misaya, gold distribution, at least on outer turrets, changes.  He who last hitteth receiveth the bounty of 250, while everyone else must partake of a comparatively measly 75 gold.  This will force teams to simultaneously extend pressure to all lanes more than they already do (please see World Championship Final, Game Three).

Baron movement speed will force people to ZOOOOOM to a bunch of different lanes if an early baron is taken, and towers will just—drop—around twenty minutes if the enemy team doesn't react quickly.  And as baroned team members scatter across the map, teams will be forced to decide which towers to defend.

The so-called "support" player will still be paired with someone, as they receive gold for nearby allies killing minions with the new Philosopher Stone, but the support can pretty much pick anyone to follow around.  The support can start bottom and then transition to split experience with the fragile jungle Karthus after four minutes, if necessary.  This will be fun, but also chaotic.  I'm kind of excited about it, but it will lead to a difficult adjustment period, and the way Misaya has described Baron's new buff, that might be too strong and too annoying to deal with.

5. Baron-centric waffling takes a hit

Zuna screaming remarkably absent.

I'm not sure how many of you know the volume of Baron throwing and stealing Gambit alone was involved in during the Season Three World Championship, but it was pretty extensive.  It was at least one per Gambit game[ing].  Gambit would be ahead and then, for some reason, go for baron.  Or, in this case, the reverse happened with Vulcun (excuse me, XDG).

Everyone has experienced it.  A team is ahead and they go for baron, only to have an erstwhile enemy jungler steal it and a nice Oriana ult ace them.  They get the bonus of the gold, a small period where they can secure objectives or discourage engage with a AP/AD/regen buff.  This lets many games turn around.

Baron will change dramatically.  I have already mentioned this, but let's consider this scenario.

You have two inhibitors down, and waves of super minions are pushing into your base.  Two members of your team are dead.  You are positive the enemy team is going for baron.  If they secure it, you will probably lose the game, as their increased stats are too much to deal with.  If you challenge it, your base is devoured by minions, and you lose.  If your jungler dies, even if he steals it on his own, you probably lose.

There is literally nothing you can do.

Here is how that situation changes.  While Baron gives the enemy team turret taking power in Season Four, if you have no turrets left, that is pretty meaningless.  Your team still has a fighting chance because the enemy team doesn't have a huge buff to statistics and regeneration when they come flying into your decimated base.  You can kill them, even if they take baron.

This also means that teams that are that far ahead—i.e., have taken your turrets—have less of a reason to go for Baron.  Sure, it will give them some gold, but it will do nothing else for them, and if they go for it, they risk giving free gold to the enemy team if the jungler can pull off a smite steal.  And if they have turrets up, the huge turret taking buff means that they most likely won't in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, if a team is ahead, but there are still turrets and inhibitors on either side, it is easy for you to fix the situation of a Baron secure simply by engaging.  They have increased damage to turrets, not champions.  In most cases, if they've expended health to whittle down baron, that gives the team without Baron an advantage in a fight.  They got baron?  So what.  Ace them before they can run to your towers.  By attacking them, you wreck the out of combat movement speed bonus.

And then, once you've killed them, you get towers.

That means that no one will go for baron now unless they are sure they will not only get it, but that they will be able to take turrets with it before the enemy team kills them.  This will make desperation barons less popular, as the ability to rush to a turret is less of a sure thing, and having the buff won't stall out the game.  In fact, it will ensure that the enemy will do whatever is in their power to kill you.

Something like that, yeah.

Add in the fact that every champion now has access to free wards or some other vision mechanism, and there is almost no excuse not to have our giant magic—ummm thing—constantly warded.  You might say that, with limited wards, this makes warding Baron less of a priority, but you're pretty much kidding yourself. Even if you only have one ward on the map, it's usually either on baron or dragon, depending upon whether or not our purple people eater has spawned.  And with a CV item on every team—calling top lane split pusher picks this one up right now, because of range restrictions—that only adds to the pressure.

This will make games faster paced, and it will make Baron less annoying, but I can also see it killing high risk-reward and epic Baron comebacks.  That's a definite downside, and I'm not sure if I entirely welcome the change.

All in all, I can't really say I'm excited about the season four changes.  They'll be interesting sure, but I can see them killing the viability of almost two entire classes of champions unless something major is done (I'm sure I won't be let down).  It will also make it easier for people with lower mechanical skill and difficulty last-hitting to climb ELO.  I suppose last-hitting is a rather mundane aspect of the game, but the balance of needing to last hit and also to make it difficult for your opponent to do so was an interesting nuance.  Fast wave clear and roam will turn every lane into mid lane.

For my sources, please see:

Subpages linked here.

Blogs:

Xpecial

Scarra

Misaya
Images:
RTS Guru
Icanhazcheezburger
LoLWiki
LoLAST
Ragequit.com.ar
QuickMeme
acfun.tv
Videos:
Not made by me, but easily clickable.  Please support youtubers!

Game of the Week: TPA vs ahq, RR

Garena started a league, similar to the LCS and their ongoing GPL, specifically for the Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau region.  This is a region with a lot of talent, including Season 2 World Champions, Taipei Assassins (though only Bebe remains of the original roster), Taipei Snipers (previous TPA captain Mistake leads this newer team), and Gamanis Bears, who qualified for the Season 3 World Championship.  The qualifier for this new league has been ongoing.  The Bears are not participating, as winning the small regional tournament to qualify for World's qualified them for both GPL and LNL.  There are three slots into GPL and seven for LNL remaining.

EDIT: Bears disbanded, so I wonder if the open slots will increase?

Over the first three weeks, TPA and TPS proved they were extremely dominant, with TPA only losing one game to You Can't Stop Me and TPS going undefeated.  As a result, the teams worked off-the-wall strategies and picks to test them in week four.  From this, our featured match arises.

Now, ahq is considered a top team in the region.  They placed very well in GPL, but did not make it into qualifiers for SEA for—reasons.  But because TPA has secured their slot in both GPL Season 2 and LNL Season 1, they ran a very interesting composition.  And while it wasn't perfectly executed, it's a pretty rich environment in which to discuss buffs and support summoner spells, which are topics I've been wanting to explore for a while.

Picks and bans
Lane speculation
Match ticker
What actually happened
Bonus discussion on support summoners

Picks and Bans

TPA bans: Gragas, Shen, Zyra
ahq bans: Corki, Orianna, Vi

TPA first picks Fiddlesticks.

TPA Lineup: Shyvana, Jarvan IV, Jax, Nidalee, Fiddlesticks
ahq Lineup: Renekton, Lee Sin, Kayle, Ezreal, Thresh

Lane Speculation:

I find all of these matchups very clever, but we're starting with top.  Shyvana and Renekton are similar champions in their function, but they go about it different ways.  TPA obviously picked Shy to answer Renekton.  Both these champions are strong early.  They can both easily clear waves, Renekton with his Slice and Dice and Shy with Burnout.  Pushing out, though, is risky for Shy with Renekton's stun, but she can answer his trades in damage, with higher base values and better scaling, as well as her passive resistances.  Their ults are also similar, with the goal to get into the middle of the team, be extremely tanky (Renekton with increased health, and Shy with increased resistances), and disrupt.  I give this matchup to Shyvana because of her early base damages and ability to answer clear, but I'd say it's pretty even, and Renekton is better at performing his late game function than Shy.  Elobuff, by the way, gives Shy a 69% win rate over Renekton.  This was a smart pick by TPA.

On the other side, this was a smart answer by ahq.  While Kayle probably won't do well against Jax in lane, she can eliminate some of his single target damage late game.  She's one of the higher success rates versus Jax for this reason.  She can also push the wave onto him better than many other champions.  Though if she gets caught by Jax, which will not be difficult with his gap closer, she should be easier to burst down.  Their ultimates are also somewhat similar, though Jax's only works on himself.  I will give this lane to Jax, but she was chosen to mitigate late game impact in duels for split push or in team fight assassinations.  Elobuff gives 

AP Kayle a 60% win rate over Bruiser Jax.

The Thresh pick into this team is difficult for me to understand.  Thresh was chosen after TPA had already shown Fiddlesticks, Jarvan IV, and Jax.  JIV and Jax are champions you cannot really get picks on, and Fiddlesticks will make laning for Thresh extremely difficult in standard lanes, as Fiddlesticks will push against him, and he'll lose impact, and Thresh will not get much use in a 2v1 situation.  The Thresh pick signaled to TPA that they could easily go through with their strategy.  The Nidalee pick was the moment the team's potential as a siege team shone through.  Fiddlesticks will clear waves, Nidalee will force the enemy off objectives, and Jarvan and Jax bruisers will follow up spears with isolation, heavy damage, and high dive potential.  The addition of the Shyvana cemented this.  But in lane, Nidalee will be somewhat weak, which is why she is relying on Fiddles to shove her lane and discourage engagements.  But again, I feel like Nidalee and Ezreal serve similar purposes to poke.  A lot of damage is loaded onto their respective qs.  I will give this lane to TPA, because I feel Nidalee is safe after level six, and Fiddles will discourage Thresh engage.

This jungle matchup was in last week's feature, and it's probably the most standard matchup in this game.  Both are good at diving, though JIV will do more early damage, and Lee Sin is more mobile.  There's not much else to say about this.  Jarvan will also clear camps faster.

Desired matchups for TPA are as listed, but because they ended up taking three smites—which is the interesting thing about this composition and further establishes it as an objective-oriented composition—they will likely want to place the duo lane mid so Nidalee and Fiddlesticks can help Jarvan contest buffs and dragons.  I predict Fiddles starting slightly more than the standard five wards and relying on Nidalee's heal to sustain, picking up maybe a mana pot to shove lane.  This will allow him to secure vision on multiple buffs for the team to challenge with their three smites.  They can then shove lane and wreak havoc on Lee Sin's jungle, taking camps whenever smite is up.  If he attempts to challenge, Fiddles can fear him, and Nidalee spear will force him away.  Shyvana will be happiest top versus Renekton because of her high mobility and the long lane.  Jax will go bottom in case of 2v1.  But TPA would also be happy with the duo mid and Jax bottom against Kayle.  Kayle is easier to dive in a 2v1 situation, but Jax will be able to farm better.  Thresh will struggle either way.

ahq would be much happier seeing Renekton against Jax, which is the predominant counter.  Both champions will do a lot for their teams late, but if Renekton takes the advantage, he can help close out the game before Jax gets caught up.  In addition, Kayle can do well against Shyvana, since Shy has no real gap close pre level six, and she can kite Shyvana with her Reckoning and get free damage.  Kayle can also answer the push and can counter Shy's potential dive with her ultimate.  Finally, Kayle can shred through the extra resistances Shy brings.  2v2 is also the best option for Thresh, even if he gets pushed on.

If TPA gets their matchups, Lee Sin will want to focus the Renekton vs Shyvana lane, as Renekton's stun will allow for lockdown.  Lee Sin will be able to gank the Nidalee and Fiddlesticks lane if they're pushed forward.  Kayle and Jax will be almost impossible.  Jarvan, however, can get an advantage for Jax in that lane early before Kayle has an ultimate if she pushes forward.  In general, his lanes don't bring much crowd control, so that's his best lane to gank.  Otherwise, the team's strategy is on forcing objectives.  But he should be mindful of Lee's high gank potential and be primed for counterganks.

If ahq gets their lanes, Lee is happy to gank for Renekton and pressure that lane against Jax over and over.  This, unfortunately, gives the devastating objective control compostion free reign over dragon, but if Lee and Rene can take a bunch of turrets top in exchange, it's definitely worth it.  The brilliance of this strategy is that it will have to pull Jarvan IV top, negating some of TPA's strategy, but if both junglers and top laners are top, TPA will still have two smites and get free buffs and dragons in the lower jungle.  Also, Lee Sin can gank Fiddlesticks, as he has low mobility and can get locked down by Thresh.  The best method for countering TPA's strategy is probably to gank Fiddlesticks when dragon is in play, hope that Jarvan IV is top to support Jax, and force a smite war with Nidalee, which they might lose if they're down two men.

Match ticker:

1:30 Both Shy and Jax gather top.

1:40 Kayle spotted mid, Jax heads down.

1:50 Because of ahq's stronger level 1, they invade; Jarvan IV trades red top, and Nidalee and Fiddles attempt to challenge Lee Sin's smite, but he still gets the buff...

2:40 Kayle spotted heading bottom, Jax continues following; at this point, Rene starts farming top, and both duo lanes are mid (Fiddles spotted by red ward sent Ez and Thresh mid and Kayle bottom).

2:57 With all smites on the map down, Lee Sin is free to take his own blue buff.  Jarvan gets his as well.

3:13 Jarvan IV ganks Thresh and Ez mid, securing FB for Fiddlesticks, but Lee counterganks and kills JIV.

4:20 Lee shows top, forcing Shy back while turret takes damage and they proxy farm.

5:58 Lee is top again, forcing Shy to flash.

6:24 While Lee and Rene continue pressuring the turret, Jarvan attempt so gank bottom, just as Kayle gets six, resulting in only a flash, no kill, and Jarvan forced to back.

7ish Lee and Ren get first turret top.

8:17 Both junglers succeed in getting their own red buffs uncontested.  Jarvan also takes blue for himself.  Lee attempts blue invade, but mistimes, and Jarvan has already taken it.

8:57 The pressure of three smites on the bottom blue buff forces Kayle away from it.  Fiddles takes it to continue pressuring midlane waves.

9:23 Because TPA's smites were all used to secure buffs, and Renekton came bottom, ahq gets the first dragon.

10:54 Kayle and Renekton shove out lanes and back, but then go back to their lanes and randomly decided to swap after Jax and Shy have shoved the lanes to tower, getting free damage while Kayle and Renekton lose exp.  Meanwhile, GreenTea makes a case for the title of Worst Thresh Internationally in the frozen mid lane.  Lee pulled bottom to answer Jax's shove.

12:19 Lee Sin forced top to stop Shy's push after Kayle backs, having been shoved out.

13:19 Rene has been aimlessly wandering while Jax free farms.  After swap, he was a level ahead of Jax, but Jax managed to pass him by one level in this time period.

15:30 Lee and Renekton dive Jax, but Jax stays safe with ult pop, and Renekton forced out.  This brings JIV, Nid, and Fiddlesticks bottom for a countergank, where Rene dies.

15:53 Fiddle ult manages to force Ezreal and Thresh away from tower, saving it.

16:30 In first real fight, TPA's bruisers zone out everything mid, but take tower damage from dive, and are forced away by Renekton.  Trade 1-1.  ahq gets second drag, but TPA gets bottom turret, top turret, and mid at this point.  I'd say Jax getting bottom turret in exchange for the dragon here is the point where TPA wins.

18:38 TPA contest another buff; this one red, to Nidalee.

19:25 Jarvan IV engages Lee, who safeguards to a ward inside Fiddles ult and dies away from his team—on the other side of the Cata.  Fiddles caught out, but Shy, who was dueling Renekton top, gets to the fight before her opposite, and they manage to kill Thresh and force Ez back.

23:30 ahq pushed back on all sides of the map, JIV gets free drag by himself.

25:25 ahq's red goes to Nidalee again

27:20 Jax is hooked over wall, fight goes 2-1 in favor of TPA, demonstrating why it's bad to hard engage face first into their team.

27:40 TPA secures second tier mid and bottom turrets they've been carefully chipping at.

29:42 Another dragon for TPA.

30:22 Archie's monster Shyvana pulls four members of ahq top and nearly kills two of them, but doesn't die.  Jax continues shoving bottom.  He peels off for ahq's blue.  Their jungle is firmly TPA's after this play.

32:40 Jax, JIV, and Fiddles kill Baron while Nidalee attempts to zone ahq; she fail pounces and has to burn flash, but gets out.  Lee trapped in pit, but can't contest three smites, dies.  Everyone in the pit uses their leaps to push onto ahq, resulting in Thresh's death.

33:42 TPA able to dive past second tier top turret and kill tanky as fuck Renekton.

40:22 Nidalee lands a spear on Ezreal while Baron is being taken.  When the fight starts, ahq, gets decimated by Shy, Jax, and Jarvan's dive.  Nidalee cleans up.  The game ends.

What actually happened:

Champion select suggested this would be a very interesting game if TPA could execute their composition—only they didn't.  I will give early game execution, exempting the lane secures, up to the point where Kayle and Renekton switch to ahq.  Lee Sin acknowledged that the lower half of the map's objectives were not worth contesting with three smites and the siege potential of Fiddles and Nidalee.  So he went top, ganked Shy over and over, and got a really early top turret.

Also, GreenTea's Thresh was bad.  Fiddlesticks didn't shove the lane.  He and Nidalee froze it.  And I have never seen so many whiffed Death Sentences in professional play.

The beginning of the game was very interesting.  Because of the weakness of TPA's champions early, they knew there would be a red buff invade, despite three smites, so Fiddles only warded that area, and Jarvan felt safe to take ahq's red freely.  When Fiddlesticks and Nidalee failed to take the red buff—this is why they aren't junglers—they burned all smites and couldn't try to steal Lee Sin's blue buff.  This gave ahq the early advantage, and Lee Sin continued to play smart.  Can I say Naz is good?  He's good.

Oh wait.  The safeguard into Fiddles ult, away from his team.  Goddamnit, Naz.  You're making me look bad.

Nidalee and Fiddlesticks failed to push onto Ezreal and Thresh at all, and Lee Sin could have been farming his jungle, but he assumed that everything would be cleared from him, and he split lane farm instead.  When everyone burned their smites on buff contests, he went for easy dragons.  Jarvan IV didn't pressure Jax's early advantage over Kayle, and instead wasted time sitting in a bush until she got level six.

Based on the early game, TPA should have lost.  Then Kayle and Renekton switched at an extremely awkward time, and Kayle was a level behind Shyvana, who had been farming top all game.  So though the matchup should have been favorable, Kayle got forced back and fell more behind.  Meanwhile, instead of pressuring his level advantage on Jax, Renekton did—something for two minutes.  And then Jax passed him and he couldn't stay in lane either.

After that, TPA took advantage of their innovations a bit better, as they finally took down all first tier turrets when Lee went for dragon. That made the map theirs.  They secured every buff and every dragon from that point forward.  Without the pressure of the turrets, ahq could not contest anything.  Then, because TPA had the late game power of Jax, Nidalee, Fiddlesticks, and Shyvana over ahq's single late game answer of Kayle, TPA could easily shove waves into their base for as long as they wanted until they lured them out for barons.  Sure, TPA could have finished the game earlier and more smoothly with the amount of dive they had—they won the few dives they did undertake—but they didn't have to, so they played an ultra safe game, got the good Nid spear, and wrecked ahq for a victory.

The brilliance of the champions TPA chose are in the heavy front line to keep Nidalee safe.  Nidalee can heal up any damage and keep chucking spears.  They don't really ever have to engage, but Shyvana and Jax will do damage while just building tanky, so they can.  And the shred from Nidalee traps and Jarvan's Dragon Strike will synergize with the entire composition to increase damage.  They can shove to tower and not worry about out-scaling.  If they really wanted to, they could also dive on a team with a more threatening late game.

Is this composition unstoppable?

Well, no.  TPA also banned smart.  Gragas and Zyra have the most powerful disengages in the game, and they were prime bans.  In addition, Shen can seriously disrupt a dive, even if Jax and Shy will make quick work of him in lane.

In addition, I feel like multiple damage threats will wreck this strategy.  An assassin or a Tristana in place of Ezreal would still be able to get to Nidalee and force TPA to back off.  The biggest issue, of course, is how completely unbalanced Jax is.  He makes this composition really strong and limits options for countering it.  They picked a Renekton instead of a damage threat, and then they didn't even get to pressure the matchup!

Bonus discussion on support summoners

Uhhh.  Don't worry.  I'll get to the TP.

If it's so good, why don't people run three smites all the time?  Well, it's a very niche strategy based on the champions they picked.  Obviously, Shy and Jax ran Ignite because those are good spells for them to run.  They can get kills in lane and they'll be in range to throw it down and tip the scales.  If you don't take ignite, and the enemy laner does, it's a terrible idea to engage them, even if you should theoretically win the matchup.  The bonus of the ignite will buff the enemy with the appropriate mastery and deal the extra true damage.

Marskmen don't run ignite because it's safer to run barrier, and their job is to be safe until they're fully built—then stay safe while doing sustained damage.  Barrier also counters ignite, so if the enemy marksman runs barrier, and you run ignite, they'll win.  Also, your support can take it.  Which brings me to my point, finally.

These are your standard bottom lane summoners.  Let me first say that ignite is useless here.  AP Nidalees don't run it because they don't get kills until late, and usually they use their spears to snipe when the enemy is running out of ignite range anyway.  So Fiddles shouldn't bring it either.

Exhaust was useless this game because Kayle is the only hyper carry, and her damage is sustained, so it's a tough call.  Exhaust could have been okay, but they were relying on three bruisers being able to zone her out.  It's bad to bring for just Ezreal.

Which removes the viable and necessary support summoners for Fiddlesticks, but what about Nidalee?  A lot of AP Nidalees take barrier mid lane, but the enemy team had pretty much zero burst damage, and Nidalees take it for long range burst in the mid lane.  In terms of cleanse, we're talking Renekton and Thresh, and if they get to her, her entire team is fucking up their shit.

So when you burn through that check list, you're left with either summoners that are sort of good or something you can experiment with: namely smite and teleport.  In my opinion, they should be considered standard support summoners if ignite and exhaust are.  Exhaust was used less than Cleanse in the world championships, and maybe two players reliably picked Cleanse (Piglet and Uzi, who made it to the finals, if you're curious).  Ignite makes sense to get extra damage and secure kills for the AD carry, but you run the risk of feeding everything to the support, and you don't really want that.  So Smite, which will give you more situation objective control, and Teleport, which is great on someone like Fiddlesticks when he first gets his ultimate to gasp gank other lanes and turn fights.

Ultimately, it comes down to, if your other choices are just mediocre, why the fuck not?  This is a great area to experiment with in competitive play because it's actually balanced and nothing is straight up better than everything else in the game.

Now.  If only Riot could figure the rest of it out.