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.

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Xpecial

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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.

Getting Hurricane Jinxed

It was only a matter of time before I posted something about Jinx, just like everyone else and their mother.

Self-explanatory, right?

No.  No, not really.

The build order is as follows:

1. The Bloodthirster (Vampiric Scepter if behind)
2. Infinity Edge/Last Whisper (Get IE first if you are not completing BT or you're really ahead)
3. Runaan's Hurricane

Let's go through the obvious questions, then, shall we?

1. Why BT first instead of IE?

The first question people always ask before they start building their marksman is "should I get BT or IE?"

Sometimes they also build for attack speed, but I'll explain why this question is irrelevant here in the next point.

This question is usually "Will my carry do more damage from AD scaling abilities or auto attacks?"

To answer this for Jinx, let's first look at some established The Bloodthirster carries.

Let's assume Graves and Varus are our The Bloodthirster carries.  Let's figure out why.  The first thing is always the attack speed scaling.  Graves gets 2.9% attack speed per level compared to Ezreal's 2.8%, which is considered abysmal, and Ashe's 4%, which is exceptional.  Varus' scaling is 3%, which is also on the lower end, but do keep in mind that Vayne's is 3.1%, and both she and Varus get bonuses for autoattacking more (in his case, blight stacks; for Vayne, Silver Bolt procs).  Yet Varus' blights aren't going to do nearly as much burst as a third stack of Silver Bolts.

Graves also has an attack speed steroid, but this steroid isn't going to always be up, like Kog'maws, and he won't get as much out of it since he doesn't deal bonus damage or range, again like Kog'maw.  So while Kog's base attack speed scaling is shittier than Graves', he gets a lot more DPS out of building attack speed than Graves does.

Which brings us to the real reason people build The Bloodthirster on Graves and Varus: high bonus AD scaling on their abilities.

Graves is the extreme with max 1.36 bonus damage per AD on Buckshot and 2.6 damage per AD on his Collateral Damage ultimate, giving him a combined AD scaling ratio of 3.96.  To put this in perspective, Zed's max single target scaling on one rotation is 3.55 (keep in mind .25 of this is going to be done on every auto attack, contingent on Living Shadows being maxed, so there's a slight bonus here in per second scaling).  Graves, with his short range of 525 is effectively an AD caster.

So, naturally, you get more damage out of BT over IE since BT gives you the maximum raw attack damage when fully stacked.

Now, let's look at Varus.  His numbers aren't as overwhelmingly obvious.  Again, his attack speed scaling is pretty average, and he gets blight stacks that deal bonus magic damage with additional auto attacks.  He also has a passive giving him bonus attack speed scaling.  So at first glance, he looks like you can build him IE, and that build isn't bad, really.

But then we look at Piercing Arrow.  It's range is 850-1475.  And it's AD scaling ratio is, at minimum 1 for every bonus AD and, at maximum, 1.6 for every bonus AD.

Now, Varus' base range of 575 isn't that bad, but it isn't safe either.  Graves, at least, has an escape.  Most IE carries have an escape or at least continuous zone control (like Ashe).  Varus has zone control on cooldown and nothing resembling an escape.  His base movement speed is also pretty low at 330 (only five more than Ashe with not nearly enough zone control).  The conclusion is that Varus isn't going to want to autoattack as much when he has a reliable scaling ability that lets him stand in the back and snipe like a caster every eight seconds at level 18.  This is why the "Legolas build" has become so popular.  Varus is low mobility, but his initiate is powerful, so people will want to play him.  So how do they?  Like an AD caster to keep him safe.

But we're talking about Jinx.  Right?

...

Well, for starters, she has the same range as Graves in miniguns, which is extremely relevant.  Second, she doesn't have an escape like Graves, which is also relevant.  Third, she has an unreliable attack speed steroid (not always in miniguns, and reliant on having stacks) like Graves and Varus.  Fourth, and most importantly, she has a Piercing Arrow.  Only better.

Zap! has a range of 1500.  And a reliable scaling of 1.4 damage per bonus AD.  What.  Yes, while Varus has to charge for two seconds, Jinx can throw out her Zap! and either force enemies to dodge and waste time or do just as much damage as Varus.  She also has a slow on it.  Now, it doesn't attack more than one enemy, but its range is just as good and its scaling is just as good.

So if it looks like a Varus and smells like a Varus...

In the end, with a max range ult, her base attack damage scaling is 2.4, which is roughly the same as Varus', though he will get his hail of arrows more often.

Let's talk the miniguns though.  In miniguns, our friend gets max bonus attack speed of 130% at max level, which isn't a reason to build attack speed, of course, but it's a reason to build lifesteal.  If you must autoattack at 525 range, you need some sustain to get you through.  18% Lifesteal on 130% attackspeed is going to give you 23.4% lifesteal per AD per second.  So combining minigun stats with fully stacked The Blood Thirster stats, that's 130 damage and 30.42 regained health per second.

Meanwhile, with IE, you get your bonus crit damage, but you aren't getting health back, and you aren't getting the snipes with Zap!  Besides, we want to buy IE eventually anyway, so why not get a The Bloodthirster first to help with Jinx's underpar laning phase?

Rocket Launcher has 10% bonus AD.  This means, her longest range auto attack mode, which will be her most reliable autoattack mode in sieges and large team fights for safety, scales at 1.1 damage per AD.  And they splash, meaning that you're hitting other enemies.  Meaning that, if you account for an area of effect with all enemy champions in range, your auto attacks are scaling at, potentially, 5.5 per AD.

This is the clincher, here.  I didn't even have to say the other shit.  Jinx has better scaling for AD on her autoattacks than AD casters.  

BT it is.

2. Ummm—attack speed?

You probably think I'm crazy for leaving out attack speed until the very end, but consider this for me.

Thresh has the lowest attack speed at level 18 in the game because his per level scaling is 1%.

This is the primary reason no one builds him as an AD carry after the brief craze that followed his release.  Now, can anyone tell me what Jinx's base attack speed scaling is?

One.  percent.

You heard me.  Jinx and Thresh now share the lowest base attack speed.  In the game.  Ezreal, look out.  You have competition.

Which, of course, means you aren't getting a whole lot of output on that 5.5 AD scaling ratio if you build attack speed in Rocket Launcher form.  

So why build attack speed or even for autotacks on this champion?  Skip IE and go straight to Last Whisper.  Then build more BTs, right?

That would be retarded for various reasons, not least because the bonus stats from BT kills don't stack.  But let me tell you what having The Bloodthirster and IE can do for you.

Splashes crit.  Okay.  So I'm doing 2.5*5+.5=13 auto damage for every AD I have when I autoattack and my Infinity Edge crits.  Plus, I'm maximizing my attack damage with The Bloodthirster and Infinity Edge.

Guys, guys.  What's attack speed?  I hear it improves damage output. Snort.

Now, you aren't always going to be in Rocket Launcher.  Granted, it has ridiculously low mana costs, but the attack speed mode is going to be the way to go vs single targets, when not sieging turrets, and in low range skirmishes.  But turrets matter more than kills.  You want to position so you aren't getting caught, and getting more attack speed  isn't going to compensate for the 13 damage per auto you're doing in team fights if you get a zeal item over either BT or IE.  So attack speed isn't useless; it's going to synergize with minigun stacks, just don't build it until you have Last Whisper.

3. Hurricane.  Really.

Remember how I said Rocket Launcher does splash damage?

Imagine if you had three rockets that all did splash damage.

That's tripling that damage output.

That's, potentially, 39 damage per AD (considering the bolts will target other targets and splash onto the initial target as well).

Why would Riot even do this?

Then, finally, you're getting your precious 70% attack speed that you haven't built with other items yet.  So that should answer why you build Runaan's over a zeal item that gives you  more crit chance.  But since you aren't building the movement speed from zeal and Jinx is as slow Ashe (lol), you should compensate with a support that can speed you up, like a Lulu or a Janna, or close the gap with CC lock, like Zyra or Leona.  Or, guess what, you have a slow.  And a snare.  And ridiculously long range.

Yeah.  Fuck zeal.  Build a Hurricane.

TL;DR: This build is fucking broken.

Whatever happened to all the trees?: tracking season three jungle changes with Maokai

I was poking around the Team Curse website, and I located Saint's Jungleology, which I had forgotten exists. I'm not the biggest fan of SaintVicious, but he's obviously doing something right that I'm not, so I'll watch almost anything.

The most recent one is Maokai, which is an old favorite not many people play these days. If you want to watch it here's the link, but I'm not really going to talk about it much in particular. Towards the end, SaintVicious lets everyone know "Maokai is viable—in solo queue," which begs the question "Why isn't he viable in competitive play?"

This question has a very simple answer that's somewhat present in the guide SV makes. Maokai is extremely susceptible to counterjungling, and he's blue dependent. This is also why Amumu took a hit. But can we track how this happened? Maokai was a force to be reckoned with near the end of Season 2, but during the summer seasons of EU, NA, and Champions, he was only picked seven times with a 29% win rate (that's two games). While that's not statistically significant by any stretch of the imagination, people just—aren't playing him. At all.

Armor reduction
Sightstones
Nunu's Jungle
The return of Lee Sin
Good in solo queue?
Fixing Maokai
Questions

1. Armor Reduction changes
There are stages to this.  The first obviously took place early Spring with the advent of the carry junglers who did ridiculous amounts of damage for no reason while still building tank items—mostly health.  To underline this claim, the top contenders were Jarvan IV, Vi, and Xin Zhao.  The latter's insane burst combined with his mark 15% armor shred properly ate Maokai alive in the jungle.

But why?

People didn't just suddenly realize these jungle champions are better than Maokai; RiotGames changed the way armor works.

1. Armor reduction, flat
2. Armor reduction, percentage
3. Armor penetration, percentage
4. Armor penetration, flat

The above is the order at which armor reduction and penetration are applied since the start of season three.  Prior to season three, flat armor penetration was applied before percentage armor penetration, so the list would have looked like this.

1. Armor reduction, flat
2. Armor reduction, percentage
3. Armor penetration, flat
4. Armor penetration, percentage

This is significant for a couple reasons.  The most obvious is that percentage armor penetration comes almost exclusively from the late game item, Last Whisper, while there are various other sources of flat armor penetration coming runes and masteries which decrease the relative effectiveness of the item.  With the order change, flat armor penetration runes are a lot more useful.  Early game, you can enter the rift and flat penetration will aid you before percentage penetration is acquired, and in late game, these same runes are not decreasing the relative effectiveness of your Last Whisper.

The second reason is a bit more subtle.  To compensate for the changes to armor penetration, Riot also nerfed armor penetration runes and buffed flat armor seals.  This is significant because it meant the most reliable way to break through armor early—which junglers need to do to secure buffs—is to reduce armor through flat armor reduction and percentage armor penetration.  This made Xin Zhao, with 15% armor reduction on his passive, Vi, with 20% armor reduction on denting blows, and Jarvan IV, with 10% armor reduction on Dragon Strike, hella desirable to clear faster on single targets and break through the buffed armor seals on champions early game.  Who is that percentage reduction going to be most effective against early?

Maybe a target with 18 armor at level 1 like Maokai.

Add the fact that he's blue buff dependent and will probably have expended his last sapling cooldown to set up his buff clear, and he's a very juicy target for an invade.  His clear is now incredibly slow since he is blue buff-less, and you've managed to cripple a heavy ganking jungle so he'll fall behind in farm—plus, you have an advantage on him in that you can break through the newly buffed armor seals if a countergank opportunity arises.  You can see how Xinvan Vi's advantage begins to snowball out of control.

2. Heart of Gold replaced by Sightstones

We've all seen the 5 ward, all pots start on supports throughout season three.  Previously, support players would at least start a Faerie Charm so they could rush a GP10 and have the income to sustain constant warding.  These days, it takes 950 gold for supports to get a two free movable wards every three minutes.  These little buggers are more useful than your standard sight wards because you can move vision to where fights occur from places where no one is paying any attention.  As a result, there is less pressure on the support player to keep buying individual green wards, and they instead rush sightstone and pink wards. 

Since ruby crystal, the first component to a Sightstone, is 475 gold and will leave a support susceptible to early harrass, they instead feel free to begin with only wards and potions in their inventories, and they can travel with their teammates to place these wards all over the enemy jungle.

How much of an invitation does Xinvan Vi really need for a search and destroy mission?  Wherever Maokai goes, early wards will allow these hard-hitting junglers to find him and kill him.  They just need to wait for him to burn a few cooldowns on camps, and he can do literally nothing but autoattack in vain to stop them while they shred his armor to nonexistence and scoop out his insides.  G-motherfucking-G.

3. The Nunu Era

Nerfs to Xin Zhao, Vi, and Jarvan IV made the jungle safe for a time, which was when you saw Evil Genius' Snoopeh doing work with his old favorites like Maokai and Amumu.  Of course, they were still really strong for all the reasons mentioned, only slightly less viable late game, and Maokai was still a bad pick, but a slightly less disastrous one.  

Then came Nunu, and with him a whole round of additional jungle changes.

Nunu is bad for Maokai on his own because he can easily steal Maokai's buffs, and he has a hard enough time clearing without building AP—which he probably shouldn't do.  But Nunu isn't nearly as good at ganking as Maokai, so he can be SOL in jungle and still catch up in assist gold and experience.

Riot fucked it up, though, and put all the experience on the buff monsters.  This introduced even more fun junglers who like to kill Maokai—but we were talking about Nunu.  In the SaintVicious guide, Nunu flashed through the camp wall to consume Maokai's blue buff.  In a competitive game, this would easily get him killed, which is part of why you can get away with picks like Nunu and Maokai in solo queue still.  But it reminds me of little tricks people used to pull when you could get level two just off of the Ancient Golem without killing the little lizards.  They would body block an invading Blitzcrank grab steal through the wall and flash back in to finish their camps.  This was clever at the time because level two, I think, is definitely worth the flash.  It is less useful now that you can't get level two off of the camp.

But that shows you how powerful invades were at the time of Nunu's dominance in Season Three.  A quick level two from a buff steal could snowball into an ace at two minutes into the game.

Then, you guessed it, Maokai is even more screwed.  He has no real tools to protect against invade.  Jarvan and friends can kill invaders.  Maokai can't even throw out saplings to scout because it will jeopardize his ability to clear his camps.

4. Lead Singers

The Nunu era didn't last long.  His consume got proper nerfs and the changes to the jungle brought back slower camp clear, heavy roam junglers like Lee Sin and Evelynn.  Lee Sin and Evelynn never really liked to farm.  It took them a little while, and their ability to jump out of nowhere onto an enemy laner and burst him down made them much better at ganking.  In the beginning of Season Three, when Riot put more experience on jungle camps—which also hurt Maokai, but I didn't mention it because duh—junglers who focused more on ganking than clearing like Mao, Lee Sin, Amumu, and Eve would fall behind single target camp clearers who could still gank...

Xinvan Vi true terror.

But when Riot moved a disproportionate amount of experience onto the buff camps, the wraiths, wolves, and mini golems became a near non-factor.  Lee Sin and Evelynn could secure the buffs, get level three, and gank a lane at three minutes.  And if someone came into their jungle to get one of their tiny camps?  Who cares.  They got first blood.  Mathematically, an assist on a level three champion kill would give the jungler 150 experience.  Meanwhile, the experience from the wraith camp is 120.  As to the gold difference 150-200 gold (first blood depending) is going to be better than the measly 50 you get from wraith camp.  So if Eve or Lee Sin get an assist on a solo lane kill, they're better off.

Do you know what else Lee Sin and Evelynn can do really well?  Kill the fuck.  Out of Maokai.  Eve's spammable Hate Spikes and Lee Sin's Q burst damage and Cripple will keep him down, and all he needs to do is burn a cooldown.

Through all this, I haven't even touched on junglers like Eve who don't even need to shred armor to deal percent health damage or Nasus who can outfarm Maokai and get dragon 100 times better than he can.  Riot didn't intentionally make them good junglers the way they seemingly intentionally made Maokai awful.

But what makes him supposedly good in solo queue?  For one thing, early invades are harder to coordinate without team trust on calls.  If bum fuck bottom lane decides they aren't coming, that might be a first blood for Maokai, who should be the one getting screwed by invade.  Then you see the video with Saint where Nunu ended up flashing to consume his Ancient Golem.  Let's point out the obvious problems with this.  1) He would definitely die if top lane were present, 2) he didn't get level two.  Then if you add in Maokai gets his own red, and Nunu has to take a longer path to his, plus Nunu doesn't gank, and Maokai does and...

Yeah, it's a train wreck.  Maokai ended up getting Nunu's blue in the end, too, so since he didn't split the little lizards on that one, he ended up getting more experience from buffs than Nunu did.  And Nunu blew his flash.

Wait.

So you can see the shit that will happen in solo queue, but not at professional levels.  Considering what I just mentioned above for competitive play relies upon coordination and minimizing mistakes, plus good ward coverage and champion knowledge—sure.  Maokai is still the same guy in solo queue as he's always been.  A targetable snare makes him really strong when flash is down, and his base armor and magic resist makes him an unkillable monster once he gets rolling (see the video for 3v1 action).  But if your enemy jungler isn't blowing his flash to get less experience than you, and you don't take lane farm, you'll fall behind.  Eve, on the other hand, rapes in solo queue.  Always.

But how can we make him better?  You can't very easily.  His abilities need the burst to clear, and they need to cost that amount of mana for him to not be the scariest motherfucker to hide in your tribush.  This is the perfect example of game changes making a champion irrelevant even though he stays the same (I'm sorry, Mao; it's not you, it's me).  I'd say, if anything, reduce cooldown, mana costs, and damage on sapping toss, but buff damage a little vs minions and monsters.  This will make the ability more of a utility spell to grant vision and a tool to control objectives, which I think is in tune with the true spirit of the champion.  Another option would be to give him almost any other passive that isn't ability reliant.

A question I've gotten in response to this is "But Nocturne is blue buff dependent.  What makes him better?"

This is completely false.  Looking at early mana costs, Nocturne requires 60+20+15=95 mana for a full rotation, and Maokai requires 55+70+75=195 mana for a full rotation.  Not only that, but Nocturne's burst and sustain come from his auto attack passive, while Maokai's sustain also comes from his passive, but that, as well as his burst, is completely ability reliant.  This means Nocturne can clear much faster and with much more health remaining than Maokai if his blue buff gets stolen early.

Yeah.  A Plat I jungler gave me this question.  He should know better.