Pogo
5381
Err… I’m pretty sure that 80% of the time, people aren’t actually trying to chase Singed, they’re trying to run the fuck away, but Singed is in front of them because that’s what he does.
Singed is chasing you, backwards.
I only ever chase Singed when I have other people capping the point and I can just chase Singed off for 5 seconds while we cap. :)
Cause lord knows, otherwise, everyone’s going to get interrupted nonstop because they don’t spread out.
Morgana was trying to farm… Me! /sadpanda.
The player was smart. Every time her stun thing was up she would walk past her minions and go for the lock/pool thing. I was quite proud of how many I dodged (almost all), but you only have to get trapped a couple of times to be needing to run away. To run away fully before she landed or tried to land anything would have meant no farm whatsoever until I could push her back at lvl6. She was careful to last hit and keep the lane favourable.
Xerath’s main problem against a lot of casters in mid is going to be that he only has two damaging powers. It wasn’t uncommon for me to land them both, and do good damage, but not enough (yeah, I know Morgana’s third is a shield, Annie’s too, but they end up semi-negating one of Xerath’s two powers, so…).
Anyone had any other experience?
Pogo
5385
Xerath has bad cooldowns. He blows a load and then I expect to get nuked and he sorta just sits there waiting…
The thing about Annie is that she may have only two damaging abilities pre-6, but their cooldown is super low; with a stun charged (or one spell from being charged), she’s likely to get a second set of her spells off if you’re trying to fight her.
I’m not a big fan of the way his cooldowns scale drastically as you level them. Early game the cooldowns are ridiculously long, late game they are pretty fast. I’d rather see a bit smoother scaling on them.
Agreed. I think he would be good in a non-mid situation, but I am unsure if there is really any point to that, he does need the farm, and the meta being what it is… Perhaps he should be shelved a bit while I think about trying Morgana, she seems pretty fun.
Cougar
5389
I’ve actually found that Xerath has some serious mana problems mid game. I tried building an AA staff last game to get around that, and I saw some success with it. Still needs more play time though.
~C~
Pogo
5390
Holy hell, 210 mana per cast of his Rank 3 ult is a lot.
But again his cooldowns are so long… I can’t see AA staff making up for it without grabbing Ionian Boots.
Maybe go the somewhat typical Morgana build, which is Rod of Ages + Morello’s Evil Tome
210 cost buys you all 3 ulti bombs, but it is still costly to pull off all your combo. Ideally you have a jungler give you blue after their first, but that relies on two things you aren’t guaranteed to get in solo queue.
I have heard that sorc boots, two Doran’s then magic hat is the only way to not feel quite weak at mid levels (forum chit chat). I know in a game where it was me, Xerath, vs a Catalyst Xerath I did better than him consistently. But yeah, you do have to be quite conservative with your mana use, which again means a tough laning phase (sure you can clear creep waves if you need to, but can you afford to?).
Tear -> Catalyst and you probably can afford to clear all the creep waves you need to, no? :)
I saw someone do quite well going top with Teleport, going Tear -> Catalyst and just farming. The enemy team had to dedicate quite a bit of effort to ganking him, and he was still able to keep farming. Was good times, especially since that allowed our jungler to give me dominance bottom as Vayne. /happyVayne
Hugin
5393
Enjoying Kog Maw. Barf! Barf! Barf! To victory!
Sona is somewhat OP in Dom it has to be said… I go catalyst first, as with ghost & speed buff you can get to top fast enough anyway, and the bump as you level up half way through the first team fight at Windmill really helps.
AS: yeah, X might be a workable solo top, I have been pondering that.
Quitch
5396
Morgana is great, but if you’re playing draft you’ll never get her, she’s banned almost every time (speaking from Normal draft, I’m not at ranked yet).
I really need to expand my range.
Weird. I always thought of sona as being a tasty treat. However, when I see a team with champs like sona, I play Kassadin. Silence + slow + chopchopchopchop.
There’s something to be said for being last pick in dominions, as I enjoy counterpicking with kassadin/vayne/sion (AD)/trynd/noct.
heh, same thing I’ve been doing.
Cougar
5399
I’ve been running Ionian Boots on him. My thinking is I’ll get the MPen I need from his Siege Mode. But I’ll confess, I haven’t done all the min/max math on him that I’ve usually done on new champs yet.
I know that with Ionian Boots and Morello’s (using 9/0/21) you hit your 40% CDR cap. The one game I did that with him, my Q felt like it was always up. (looks like 3s CD on Q and siege mode at 2.4s)
~C~
Go Deathfire, not Morello’s unless you take ignite on him (not advisable tbh, tp or Ghost or even Exhuast would be better) as you need the burst damage mid-game.
