4461

High ELO peeps can still own with Jax up top, though I think his damage was toned down a bit.

There are plenty of sustainable top laners. Cho’Gath and Morgana are also fine.

4462

If he disconnects during the swap portion, the game requeues, and the guy loses elo.

4463

I’m well aware of this. I’m suggesting that they extend the “during the swap portion” to “during the connecting screen”. The argument you used for why not to do this serves just as well to argue for why they shouldn’t do it during the swap portion, so I remain unconvinced that my suggestion wouldn’t be a plus for the game.

You can even give a certain amount of time (say, a full minute) for someone to reconnect, and if they don’t, you consider them to have bailed.

Sure, someone could reconnect 5 minutes into the game, but that doesn’t make the game a fair one.

4464

Is there a way to dodge the pick without quitting the game?

4465

FWIW, in the game I just finished a nunu player on my team disconnected before ever leaving the shop area at the beginning, in the first like 30 seconds. I was solo top as a result, and we did pretty well. He ended up reconnecting when I was level 10 or so, and we ended up winning the game in 32 minutes by surrender. I was 13-0. Does being alone in a lane give you more experience from minions? I outpaced my opponents by a fair margin. They were akali and jax.

Also, what is the strategic difference between top and bottom lanes? Why do people say a champion is good for top, or good for bottom? Is it the layout of the neutral jungle creeps or something?

4466

Should I be able to play without relying on lifesteal/spell vamp?

I’ve come to realize that I do much better when I have them, yet they are not always included in the suggested itemizations for characters.

It is making me wonder whether it is just underlying a flaw in my play, that I rely on them so heavily.

4467

Consensus is there’s no such animal. Usually you send a bruiser top, and there’s lots of excellent bruisers, so you pick someone you can use well and, ideally, can counter their pick.

Of course, you don’t have to send a bruiser top; Galio and Kennen are fine choices as well. Just be damn sure that if you go top vs a bruiser you’re not autolosing; I picked Renekton, they sent Katarina top. Cue curbstomp.

Jax is a perfectly viable pick.

4468

Singed can kind of own top.

4469

Yes. Minion experience is split between champs in range.

Also, what is the strategic difference between top and bottom lanes? Why do people say a champion is good for top, or good for bottom? Is it the layout of the neutral jungle creeps or something?

Generally, generally, a team has a jungler, which means that one of the sidelanes is solo. Tradition dictates that the solo be top and the duo be bottom for better dragon control.

4470

You get more xp is you’re alone in the lane, yes. The difference between top and bottom is that top is the lane that only one player goes to, while the fifth player jungles. A top champion is a champion who makes good use of the extra levels being top grants.

Depends on the champ you’re playing, and who you’re up against. So, maybe?

4471

I don’t know. It just always seems like such a huge advantage to be able to go quickly fill back to full health off some creeps whenever you are down in health. You lose so much less XP than if you have to teleport back, and you basically get a synergistic effect from the farm you would ordinarily be doing.

Also, ranked is funny (or draft in general). I don’t think I’ve seen a game yet where Amumu wasn’t banned.

4472

That’s solved by knowing when to push creeps so that you can go back.

If your enemy goes back, blow all your cooldowns/mana on clearing the creep wave quickly so that you can go back while your creeps are getting killed by his tower. By the time you get back the waves will probably be reset and back to the middle.

4473

That’s not how I read it.

Plus it is Riot, so you know their time estimates are never right.

4474

Holy crap, they have unranked draft mode as an option? How did I miss that? Is it new?

4475

They enabled it temporarily since ranked mode is offline.

4476

In fact, they made a change a while back such that any XP split between multiple people is actually split from 110% the original amount, while a single person in XP range only gets 100%. I can only assume that’s to keep solo-laning folks from growing too fast compared to 2 opposing laners.

4477

You assume correctly. The solo-lane metagame was too strong at one point.

4478

So, um, I am slow and no good at online games, so I had skipped over it. Decided to go ahead and give it a go after skimming an article. I had not so much as entered this thread. I had no idea that your dude moves at a non-frenetic rate of speed.

I feel quite lost. Where is the best worse-than-noob place to go before I try to get slaughtered.

I did the friendly bot single player tutorial. Should I do that a couple of times?

4479

You can play against bots (with or without human allies) as many times as you like to get comfortable with the game. Choose either “Co-op vs AI” or “Custom” game types. I recommend beginner co-op.

4480

First post of the thread has some links you’ll find useful.