So, anyone playing League of Legends?

How? All he has to do is last hit, when there are no low minions he harrasses you, then he goes back to last hitting. And if you push the wave to his turret you are inviting the jungler to come. If you only last hit, you have no shield and are even more screwed. Besides your harass costs health, not a whole lot, but noticible at low levels. He should outtrade you early and win by gaining an health advantage, cause he doesnt run out of health pots nearly as fast as you would. The first couple of levels is often what wins the lane.

 

Meanwhile my harass is my farm at the same time if I'm doing it right. He should never be close. The first couple levels he doesn't even have a good enough combo to bust down a decently strong shield.

Ganking, yes is an issue. It's an issue period when playing as Mordekaiser.

 

But the thing is a good Garen would never be harrassed. He would trade back every time you harrassed, and always end up on top. You hit your stuff, he uses his. Always. Only a bad Garen would take an E to the face and not trade it with his combo. And he heals up afterwards, Morde doesnt.

There is also the simple fact that anyone experienced playing against a Morde would never stand close to his own minions, allowing you to build your shield and harrass at the same time.

 

The boots fury enchantment for Garen is just so fucking fun, watching your enemy panicking and trying to disengage using all his speed boosts yet you're always spinning on his face.

 

Hey Mystary, do you know anything about bot lane? I'm looking to get better as AD carry.

 

I love Mystary and Beercan. Just sayin'.

 

Not bot lane specifically, but the same principles applies as with the Garen/Morde example. It's pretty basic, never take free harrass.
A common mistake is to back off whenever someone hits you, wheter its auto attacks or spells, because they are afraid of the damage. But then you automatically start to lose the lane. You should always try to trade back. If Graves Q's you, his Q is off cooldown, he's not gonna be damaging you with it again for another couple of seconds, hit him with whatever you got in return. Of course this doesn't apply to all match ups, depends on sustain, burst and whatnot.

 

Decently strong shield, you say.

Let's take level 4 for the 'first couple of levels'. At level 4, your maximal possible shield is 210, which I think you can agree is rather unlikely to get at level 4. Let's establish you get roughly the half of that (which is still generous as it is), 110.

You are facing a stereotypical kamikaze Garen who started with doran's blehd. At level 4 he has 1 level in Q and 2 in E, as well as around 95 total AD from runes and masteries.

His single Q is enough to tear your shield to shreds (163 damage), after which you start taking massive continuous whacks to the face, administered by a spinning madman that you can do nothing about, not even run from, taking 120 damage per second, for a total of 360, followed by an ignite and a basic attack and you're dead.

Not good enough, you say?

 

I'm not Mystary, but I know thing or two about bot lane, so here it goes.

In standard meta, there are 3 types of bot lanes: burst lane (aka kill-lane), poke lane and sustain lane.

In burst lane your goal is to play passively, waiting for enemy to make a mistake. When he does (usually by overextending) you quickly focus on that player, hitting him with everything you've got (damage and CC wise), which usually is enough to kill him. Then you go back to passively farming till next time you can catch someone with his pants down. Typical burst lane matchup: Graves + Leona, Vayne + Alistar.

In poke lane your goal is to harass as often as possible, but not commit until you're 100% sure you can get the kill. You stay outside of the enemy's attack range, then when he's busy (e.g. going for last hit on creep) you close in quickly, deal some damage and retreat before he can retaliate. Poke lane ADCs must have long range and escapes, while supports must have enough CC to "peel off" enemies if they decide to pursuit after being harassed. Typical poke lane matchup: Caitlyn + Janna, Ezreal + Lulu.

In sustain lane, your goal is to force trades as often as possible and winning by having more heals than enemy team. Basically engage-attack-disengage-heal until you force your enemies to take bluepill back to the base allowing you to farm freely. Typical sustain lane matchup: usually Soraka + Corki.

Some people say that there is some rock-paper-scissors thing going on here where: sustain beats poke, poke beats burst and burst beats sustain; but IMHO if you're playing smart you can at least not lose your lane, no matter the compositions. If you want to win against your "counter" lane, then good communication with the jungler is usually necessary.

 

But what makes a 1500 adc or a 1800 adc? The problem is also that pretty much every lane becomes a sustain lane once they get their vamp scepter or some lanes can do both easily. So for example Vayne + Alistar is easily a sustain lane AND a burst lane, so what's their weakness? Some supports can do multiple roles like Sona or Lulu. Is it really all about knowing the matchups? You don't always get to counter pick either. I've been recently trying to improve my creep denying skills because it appears to be something not in my elo range.

 

Bad Garens, at least on EUNE, seem to be the rule. Doesn't mean that he doesn't fucking destroy you by just being aggressive no matter how bad he is, your combo is something like 200 less than his and you have negative sustain to his free sustain, also he gets 30% damage reduction which is substantial at every stage of the game. Only ganks can save you from Demacia, to what he is much more resistant than you. Mordekaiser is a bully but Garen is a much bigger and meaner bully.

Some months ago, before S3, I was watching my friend play Garen mid against Katarina, fucking drunk as he was. Well no matter the amount of booze Garen turns your low-risk high-reward "assassin" not so cool anymore

You can add Persekaira, I probably won't remember myself.

 

Basically, it's farming and positioning. I'm not talking about being good at last hitting, because that's necessary for every role, I'm rather talking about knowing when to farm and when to help teammates. Tank or brusier can afford to delay his build for some time by running around the map and putting pressure here and there, ADC can't. If you aren't killing (either creeps or enemy champions) then you're wasting time and you'd better have a really good reason for that.

Positioning is knowing where to stand during the teamfight. Good position is a place that won't get killed and where you'll be able to deal maximum damage to top priority targets. I'm deliberately saying "top priority targets" and not enemy carries. Because as ADC, you don't always attack enemy carries. In fact, you rarely do, unless they have made some terrible mistake and got caught in the open. You attack whoever is coming to get you first and only when you're safe you go for enemy squishies.
I don't know what else to say, every match has different amount of CC and gap-closers that enemy can fuck you up with, so I guess positioning is a skill that can by only learned by playing. Watching and analyzing how pro players are doing will probably help too.

If you'd max Alistar's heal first and go for early mana regen items then I guess maaaaaybe he could offer his ADC some sustain. But going mana regen means he cannot build tanky, so his killing potential goes down. So it's one or the other.
An early vamp scepter is situational. You have to constantly attack to get any decent amount of heath back. And that means pushed lane -> gank -> death. It's good item to have after you've build some big damage items, or you are already dominating in lane. If you ever see enemy carry rushing vamp scepter (buying it before any damage items), just go b, buy 2 dorans, kill them and then zone them forever. It's that easy.

Champions are flexible. Both ADCs and supports. I mean, you probably won't be able to go balls to the wall with Soraka, or sustain with support that has no heal, no question about it. But it's the combination of ADC + support that decide what kind of lane will work best. It doesn't mean that something else won't work (e.g. your Vayne + Alistar sustain might work), just some champions synergize better when you play with certain style in mind.

 

No offence but I don't see the high elo advice. Most Alistars max e first, his sustain is just as good as his combo for the reason why he's chosen, and he doesn't need mana regen more than any other support. Vamp scepter is rushed quite a bit too.

 

If we're going to use math, then let's use it to the full extent. 25% Shield is more realistic than 50% so I'll use 25% for my math. (So that's 50 shield at the start).

Totaling the damage Garen puts out via abilities and spells gives me 656 damage.

To focus on my Morde for a second, at level 4 has Boots and 3 Health Potions as items, 795 health, and 26 AP. He has level 1 Q and W and a level 2 E. Using those three abilities and ignite cost him 88 health while dealing about 525 damage. Defensively, using all 3 abilities will net him about 138 shielding, plus the 50 we assume he has is 188 shield.This puts Morde down to 327 health.

I'll assume Garen is around 950 health at the start, he's down to 425 from Morde's abilities.

Which is a clear victory in a world where there are no minions. In reality Morde is silenced after his burst so he's simply autoattacking, however his abilities would have given him more shielding. Assuming he hits just 2 minions with his Q and E (his W is a little too situational to compute) thats an extra 154 shielding. If Morde is smart he hit at least 3 enemies along with Garen with his Q and E. (The E coming after the silence is gone). This can give him about 300 shielding which actually leaves Morde with more health after the fight.(I realize this exceeds the max but Garen is hitting Morde the entire time.)

No obviously this all sorts of MR and Armor that has not been computed and there's Garens damage reduction active, but I also didn't add Morde's auto attack while silenced nor any harass that he should have done. Also there is plenty of opportunity of errors in my math. At this point, I'm still not convinced Garen > Morde, and at this point I'm rather comfortable saying I don't believe Garen counters Morde.

 

You make the mistake of thinking that the lane is won after one trade. A bad Garen might agree, and be discouraged after seeing the damage he took and never try to fight you again. A good Garen would engage you again and again and again. Because his passive heals him back up afterwards. Morde would slowly but surely lose because he has no sustain.

 

Trying to be devil's advocate here, all Morde really needs to do is survive long enough to get his revolver, then he's in sustain city.

True story, I am horrible at top, having had less than 10 games there probably ever. I end up being relegated at top a few weeks ago against a Vlad. I knew what he was capable of, he had infinite sustain and poke with his Q. I could've gone with my 2 top champions, Olaf or Xin but I instead decided to play it safe and go with free week Mundo despite having played with him very little. I had a gameplan, to become better late game than Vlad, and since I was Mundo it was wholly achievable. Winning the lane was a secondary objective.

At the start of the game, I do something very unorthodox, I spend all my money to buy 2 rejuvenation beads and the rest in red pots. My plan despite not knowing terribly my champ or his was to outsustain his weak Q poke early on and farm long enough to afford a Warmogs. I just wanted to get that early farm, that's it, not even looking to trade well and get to level 6. I do exactly that, I take his poke, I take his aas but who cares, I just regen all of it back. I won the first stage of laning, we are basically even.

Second stage post lvl 6, his damage becomes significant but I played smart again and leveled my W to instantly kill waves so that I don't get tower dived. I can't outsustain him anymore so I just farm with cleavers and then farm under tower and ult whenever he becomes too aggressive. Vlad clearly can trade better with me by now and zones me but I still achieve my objective. He probably kills me once by this point and I get a kill off a gank or something. He's slightly ahead.

Then for the 3rd stage I finally back and rush my Warmogs. With the crazy life regen, I win, it's gg. I get so much sustain now that I bully the Vlad out of lane and take his tower first. Shortly after he takes my weakened tower but lane phase is over. I got my goal which was to farm well, late game I destroy Vlad in usefulness and win it big for my team.

What does this teach us? That laning phase isn't won by who can make the other back first either. So Morde is weak early, his sustain goes through the roof with as little as 1200 gold and then it's a whole new lane. And Garen is a early snowball champion, I'm pretty sure if you can shut him down and prevent him to get a kill or just force him to be in lane 24/7 because you're Morde you will have done your job. Late game Morde is still very useful I gather while Garen drops more. It's not just about the math either.

 

Are you kidding me? I was responding to a guy that literally said Garen just has to combo his abilities, AA once, ignite and it's over and you're accusing me of claiming that one trade is a won lane. Fucking ridiculous.

To my eyes, Morde wins an all in. He also has lower CDs than Garen, meaning he SHOULD be able to try zoning Garen out at this point. A smart Morde would keep up the pressure on Garen, fuck Garen's engaging, Morde has the impetus now. He has to keep Garen's passive down and negate the small sustain a Doran's Blade offers. The whole point of the 3 health potions is to offer some temporary sustain until Morde farms for his Hextech Revolver. If he can survive to that point it's his lane.

The big risk is ganks, of course but this entirely depends on the jungler. All but Morde's ult deal damage to multile targets. And honestly, even if Morde is losing by this point, fall back to the tower and just farm like crazy. Morde is rather resilient to towerdives.

 

Hue's abilities are all so short ranged Garen can always trade with him, he doesn't eat free harass at any point.

What Garen starts with Doran's Blade? What's the point?

 

Sometimes the minions end up just so Morde can score a hit From a decent distance actually. I normally try to keep Garen in line with my E via minions. It's actually fairly easy to fuck around and get something.

As for Doran's Blade roxor was the one who stated it in his hypothetical so ask him.

At any rate, another ranked match another win. A losing streak will happen eventually but the longer I can stave that off the better.

Still only really comfortable jungling as Skarner. To be honest I know it's his safe clears that make me like him. I so need to practice other junglers. Also having second thoughts about Iceborn Gauntlets. Sheen on Skarner is a must, I used to build into a Trinity Force but switched when S3 started. Now it always seems like I'm just a bit too slow to hit his shortranged abilities, even with my MS quints. The slow iceborn provides is somewhat pointless to a Skarner that is fast enough to essentially make you permaslow, the Glacial Shroud that builds into Iceborn is another must but why not just get a Frozen Heart instead later on? It's not like Trinity Force has anything that Skarner can't make use of, Sheen is a must, Zeal makes it easier to get in range with abilities and the AS works with his passive, while Iceborn does not offer at all, and Phage is a good item to get a bit tankier in general. More expensive but since they're both items that give decent dividends before they're complete that is negligible. Thoughts?

 

Get Triforce if you're fed up the ass, get Gauntlets if not since you'll need to be tanky at some point anyway.

Shed some light on this : if you're going to use flat penetration items like BC and Ghostblade or Sorcs and Liandry's, why not just use penetration marks and quints? I have seen some pro's go full attack damage marks and quints, but I'm thinking isn't it better just to go the other way?

 

From my understanding penetration works better later on while runes are typically used to do well early on so they're kind of at odds in concept.

Plus for AD casters, AD runes are quite simply let your abilities do more damage than they otherwise would. I'm a huge fan of Penetration marks but I hate to say they just might be worse than AD runes.

 

It's the other way around. AD runes are better for auto attackers, they deal high constant damage and their spells have little to no scalings. It also helps last hitting since minions have very low armor.
AD casters however rely on their spells to do damage in bursts and cannot afford armor to mitigate that. They also tend to have high base damage on their skills but poor scalings, making penetrations more effective. There are some exceptions, but I don't think anyone uses penetration runes anymore, with the penetration from masteries and all the new fancy items.

 

Let's say I main Garen, Zed and Pantheon. Should I pick armor pen marks and quints as I'm thinking, or something else?

Zed ofc. gets 25% bonus AD but of the 15 that's not so much and it's end-game.

 

New champion out in PBE, called Thresh. Necromancer dude, excellent base stats, he looks to be a support but also possibly a tanky mid. His passive gives him armor and magic resist when an enemy dies, permanently we should believe, because he gains no armor/MR per level. His kit has excellent burst, a huge huge amount of cc and long cooldowns. Just reading his skill descriptions he looks so fucking strong, bot lane will never be the same.

edit: played with him. You gain souls for your passive for each minions that dies! In about 30 minutes, you stand to gain 100 souls if you spend all your time with your carry that's farming. 100 souls currently give you 63 armor, 63 MR and 63 AP. Yep, you get stronger by just standing near your carry and collecting the souls of dead cs. And if you calculate the value of those gains, it's thousands of gold. Of course his Q also increases his basic attacks by his souls amount, so he does 100 damage extra with each AA minimum. His W is a great AOE shield that lasts for 6 seconds and can reposition allies. His ult is fucking incredible at peeling for people in a teamfight.

 

Abilities:
( Q ) Shackle

Passive: Deal 0.5*AD-1 magic damage on each hit that builds up when not attacking.​

This value is equal to total souls collected plus up to 80/110/140/170/200% of attack damage, based on the amount of time since his last attack.​

Active: Grab an enemy, then pull them to you or leap to them.​

Throws out his scythe, dealing 80/110/140/170/200(+0.5*AP) magic damage to the first unit hit and pulling them toward him for 1.5 seconds.​

Reactivate this ability to pull Thresh to the bound enemy.​

( W ) Lantern Toss

Create a shielding lantern that an ally can use to dash to you.​

Throw the Lantern to a point. If an ally near the Lantern clicks it, they pick it up and Thresh pulls both back to him.​

Additionally, allies who come near it gain a shield lasting 6 seconds that absorbs up to 60/100/140/180/220(+0.4*AP) damage. Allies can only receive the shield once per cast.​

( E ) Sweep

Knock nearby enemies in the direction of your choice.​

Deals 65/100/135/170/205 (+0.4*AP) magic damage in a line beginning behind him. Enemies hit are pushed in the direction of the swing, then slowed by20/25/30/35/40% for 1.5 seconds.​

Cast forward to push; cast backward to pull.​

( R ) The Box

Trap enemies inside walls that slow and deal damage if broken.​

Creates a prison of spectral walls around himself. Enemy Champions who walk through a wall suffer 250/400/450 (+1.0 AP) magic damage and are slowed by 99/50% for 2 seconds, but break that wall.​

Once one wall is broken, remaining walls deal half damage and slow duration.​

( Passive ) Keeper of Souls

Thresh collects the souls of dead enemies by walking near. Souls permanently grant Armor, Magic Resistance, and ability power.​

Champions and large minions always drop a harvestable soul. Small minions only sometimes drop a soul.​

Thresh does not gain armor and magic resistance per level.​

Looks broken as fuck. Blitzcrank move over.