Yeah, I find it weird that some people consider the extra damage, for last hitting purposes, a “crutch”. I have lots of thoughts on the last hit mechanic I will save for another time. But the criticisms that come with the concept of failing to last hit, and using things to aid in that, all seem to assume that last hitting is “sitting in the lane and getting the killing blow on a creep”.
Which it is, but in game that frequently includes:
-
A good Cho smartly using his Q (rupture is Q? I can’t remember) to try and deny me the chance to last hit. I either get knocked up and don’t attack. . . or I might run away not getting the shot off.
-
Vlad F@#$@@#$! RAGE. . . sorry. Vlad doing any number of vlady things to deny me last hits. I ran into a very high level Vlad mid once who basically set up shop on MY SIDE OF MID. I could barely scratch him and he beat the shit out of me and had a zillion hit points LA LA LA DIE VLAD. Needless to say, I didn’t farm that well and I had to call for a switch eventually. I don’t know how much farming vlad did but I don’t think it mattered. In my heart, I have decided vlad can be played sans any items and he is still awesome.
-
Any number of champions - twitch to Kog - who were adept at poking, poking me and trying to interfere with last hitting (even if they could get me thinking, you know).
-
Mundo and those god forsaken cleavers. Other skill shot wielding champions, sure. But especially Mundo, whose skill shot is spammable and hurts and slows and on its wings fly the cries of a thousand lost children.
-
Competition with a lane mate for kills. And as a corollary to this: Therlun in general. There are creeps that are recognized - by virtue of international treaty and also divine right, also via sheer obviousness - as “mine” but he will try to kill them any way. Silly Therlun.
-
The “good guy creeps” occasionally doing things that I feel they shouldn’t be doing and messing up my timing. I don’t know if I should always be able to predict their behavior (or, maybe mostly), but sometimes I feel like I should be able to, fail to, and oh there’s another last hit chance missed.
-
My own demons, of course. I think I do ok last hitting. I have good games and bad (ever have a game where you have trouble getting the timing down at first). I can’t decide which is worse - being a mere moment too late and having that shot arrive as the creep dies, or being there a shade too early and it having a sliver of health left, wherein another allied creep eats it.
-
Oh! 1v2ing while certain people whom I will not mention jungle and die at blue buff. With 1v2, am definately taking a dorian’s shield because my experience has been the higher level players recognize it’s tryst 1v2 and decide to work to limit my farming and try and get a kill. I think I’ve done decently in these situations; it has been a play adjustment for sure.
So there are situations where, yes, I can sit relaxed and attempt to last hit. But there are many more situations where I Cannot. And I’m not so sure I haven’t underestimated the value in getting attack damage up more quickly. It isn’t like I have a lot of options for that as tryst. First attack items (boots are mixed in as situation and my own quality of play dictate, of course) are generally pre-madred’s claws or a B.F. sword (shooting for I.E but occasionally I have experimented with a Bloodthirster first). Rarely a pickaxe (when I’m still several hundred from a B.F. and I feel like I need a damage boost now. This usually indicates my lane is not going as well). I simply don’t have lots of ways to get damage. And Tryst is very item dependant, being a classic carry.
So maybe I should go back to experimenting with an early blade, or try a 3x dorian blade build to see how that goes (only 1200ish gold. Less damage than a pickaxe but you get a nice health boost and a healthy amount of life steal at that point. Course the pre-madred’s claws get you slightly less damage, nice armor, and the neat minion proc).
I’ve reached a weird place with tryst. Post STREAK OF DOOM where I went 1-22 or whatever, in pubbies I seem to be doing better. 8-10+/x/10+ scores. In Qt3 games my numbers suffer. I chalk part of that up to the majority of the Qt3 crowd being much better at this - most of you guys have at least 1 level 30 if not multiple 20+ accounts, and have played across all accounts hundreds and hundreds of games. So yeah, if you put Idrisz on Mundo he will rule (except that last game recently, where idrisz was ruler of two things: jack and shit. And jack just left town), and almost certainly do better than me (I have had a few games with Qt3 with terrible kill counts but good assist counts, that is something).
So Qt3 game scores are often <8 (and often <5)/x/10-20.
Last game where we lost (yesterday afternoon) we actually started out well. I did ok mid (one stupid death to a Twitch player who didn’t look very good at first but we never killed him and he was typically twitch late game). First time I went back I had like 3900+ gold. I went Mercruy, B.F. Sword and Oracles and had change, and still got the IE built quickly. It was a squishy, if elusive, team (twitch, kennen, the clock dude, garen, and I can’t remember who. Soraka?). No need for Madreds. I just had very little to show for my attack efforts.
That felt like a match I should have been more productive in, but wasn’t. I even got a blood thirster built and still felt like I was having trouble doing a lot. I didn’t get a good look at how people were itemizing. It’s possible I missed some juicy armor in there. After a successful team fight or two we started getting slaughtered, for a variety of reasons.
I think you said you’re still leveling up, too, so I imagine the shield helps mitigate some of the uncertainty involved with that. You may be going up against people with better runes and so forth, so regen probably helps in those scenarios whereas the blade may just get you forced out of your lane.
It definately has. This was a few weeks ago, but I started going shield after I was mid in a series of Qt3 games and faced for the first time in successive order: a terrific Vlad, a terrific Kog, a terrific Cho, a terrific Twitch, and I can’t remembmer but someone who was a good player (kennen maybe). Yes, I was still in the dying throws of that n00bish over aggressive streak. But I found myself getting harassed back to base too frequently (and occasionally having bad deaths) and getting under farmed.
I’ve played more mid than not in qt3 games; it’s really only in the last week or two that I’ve been playing side a bunch (and my lack of playing side in a coordinated team game has shown at points; I blew a chance for a double kill with McKnight or Mx the other day, e.g… But I have my moments). Also, I have played many more qt3 games where more people weren’t smurfing than were. SO yeah, I am facing higher leveled people. I know masteries and runes aren’t end all, but they do add up. The games disparity matters more, sure.
