6241

Ah, well the big secret these days is that if you know how to play them pretty much every champion is viable in an actual non-support role. Especially for normal below-2000-Elo players.

Except Eve. Don’t play her.

6242

I didn’t present it that way at all. I got trolled by McKnight, whose reasoning for his comment I can only assume to be “LOL Black Shield stops whirlwind and slow, therefore Morgana shits on Janna in lane.”

6243

Speaking of Janna, I took her in ranked bottom with a Tristana (who picked her after someone on our team took Ashe, so I wasn’t expecting much). She was terrible at last hitting and wasn’t at all aggressive when I put my shield on her. I had no idea what to do. I started just taking all her last hits since I couldn’t count on her. Ultimately it didn’t matter since Kass totally fed Annie mid and Ashe fed Irelia top a bit and we surrendered at 20. I was last pick so I was expecting the rest of my team would be competent, but I guess not.

6244

Yeah if I roll Janna and my carry can’t last hit, I just start taking that shit for myself so I can have better mana flow and more wards. But at that point my primary goal is more to avoid feeding the other team and try to disrupt their last hitting.

6245

Lee Sin ProTip: if you d/c while doing blue, die as a result, and are therefore level four when Irelia is level eight, do not attempt to hold the lane against Irelia so Talon can go buy. Irelia has twice your levels. She will jump on you, and you will die.

Thank you for your attention.

6246

Oh you got disconnected again?

6247

Just beat HotshotGG in ranked!

6248

Congrats! That’s awesome. I don’t suppose a recording of him swearing and blaming his team is available.

6249

I’ve noticed I consistently do better in ranked games when I am pick 4 or 5. I can’t decide if that’s because:

  1. I am being carried by players 1-3
  2. My ELO is arbitrarily low for my play so it is like stacking the deck.
  3. Being able to counterpick the enemy is very helpful.
  4. Being able to pick based on my team comp is very helpful.

I’m leaning toward 3 and 4, but still not sure.

ETA: Jungle Soraka went 1/9/10 Other team surrendered. AHUEHUEHUE

6250

One other possibility; having many players lower than your ELO (when your ELO isn’t particularly great to begin with) really increases the chance that at least one of the other 3-4 is going to be a complete and total idiot that nearly no team can win with. I’m talking about the chance of getting someone who goes 0/12/0 within the first 20 minutes or so (a jungle Fiddlesticks player that I was “fortunate” enough to have on my team recently, under exactly those circumstances, where I picked first).

6251

OMG What are you trying to say to me? I’m about to nerd rage all over my apartment so hard.

6252

Just played a game as Ali. Also on my team? Singed and Trist.

The enemy team went where we wanted.

6253

they must not have had Mundo then…

6254

Heh. I’m just borrowing from what you wrote:

“My ELO is arbitrarily low for my play . . . .”

If it helps, my ELO just seems arbitrary. I’ve been on a winning jag lately; I don’t particularly think I’m playing any better, but I’ll still take credit for it. (Losses are still because of dipshit teammates, of course.)

6255

So, I wanted to play Caitlyn, she’s as close to a main as I have at my crappy skill level. But Cait is free this week so someone else jumped on her. So I took Tristana instead.

We proceed to play super lousy. I get a few early deaths recalibrating my gameplay for Trist vs Cait, but then settle down. But I’m getting no kills and someone is dying like crazy. At the 20 minute mark, I’m something like 1/3/3, the overall kill board is something like 10/30, we’ve lost all our center turrets and our center inhibitor.

We get to defending around the Nexus, I get killed a few times just due to overall mayhem. But the defense does sort of clog things up, and my Trist is slowly getting her shit together, gearwise. Infinity blade…Zeal…Last Whisper, Phantom Dancer, Bloodrazor…

We lose one of the last two turrets at the Nexus, but manage to beat them back, and someone on our team signals that we should get Baron. So everyone runs for Baron, but I’m lagging a bit behind. The entire other team jumps us at Baron, just a terrible mess, and I realize by the time I get there I won’t contribute anything. So I work my way up through the jungle. Someone on our team is managing to lead them on a goose chase through the other jungle, so the team fight is lasting longer than I expected.

Anyway, long story short, I vaporize three turrets and an inhibitor with my Q before I get jumped and killed, leaving their nexus wide open, and then TP back up to some random creep that managed to make it up near their base when I revive, and take down the Nexus while their Soraka takes free shots at me. At the point we win I have like 32 hitpoints left.

The funny thing is, when we got pushed all the way back and lost our first Nexus turret, I had to pee badly and said fuck it, and called for a surrender, which got voted down. Then I died and had 30 seconds or whatever to run and pee, so it didn’t matter. I guess I’m glad I wasn’t allowed to lose us the match before I won us the match.

6256

Since they nerfed AD Janna >:|

6257

You beat him in lane or your team beat his team? It’d be interesting to try to play against him in lane.

Congrats.

edit: I see Hotshotgg played Janna during that time. That’s not as exciting as watching you and Chiffy go against a Westrice premade on his stream.

In other news I picked up Teemo and did a normal with Frank, and another with Chequers, and went like 12-2-12 both times. Watching The Rain Man definitely gave me an edge.

6258

Ranked placement matches sure are frustrating. First two picks are Nid and Teemo. I go Morgana and figure I can go more tanky/support on bottom or top. Last pick calls Kat mid. I say no, expecting Nid mid. Last two picks are Xin (who doesn’t jungle) and Katarina. Surprisingly, everyone cedes mid to me. I don’t buy boots (since I didn’t think I was getting mid) and get beat up early by Anivia. Kat takes over for a bit, but gives it back to me later. I outplay Anivia after that, but Nid goes afk for ten minutes and the rest of our team mostly fails.

I like Morg, but I don’t see how you land her skill shot against a competent mid with boots. Anivia was dodging mine as easily as I was dodging hers. I guess you don’t and just live with it being fantastic in team fights or against people who are chasing you or that you have ulted.

6259

You don’t. This is why getting bitched out for missing a binding during a gank is just annoying, because it’s easy as shit to dodge when the enemy is not traveling a predictable path.

And you’re right, the strength of the binding is launching it from half a screen away into the enemy team and hoping someone squishy or at half-health runs into it, aside from its chasing/CC qualities (easy to land when their melee tries to latch onto one of your allies, there are lots of predictable moments like that… Jax jumps, Pantheon jumps, Xin charges, a good player knows who that person is going to jump based on vicinity alone, and that’s when you have your binding read to fire).

6260

Skarner is the most useless pick against a team that can actually kite properly.