4581

That’s the problem right there, there is no such thing as “community” in LoL, at least not in the same sense as there is in WoW or TF2 or any other major multiplayer game out there; when you join a solo queue game it’s as if you joined a random dungeon in WoW: you will get flamed for underperforming and you won’t get any credit for going above the call.

However, using the WoW example above, you have an outside community, your guild and forums, which you can lean on for support or simply to chat and ask how to do A and B and actually play the game “better”; this doesn’t exist in LoL or any DOTA-style game, it’s a free for all environment which is populated mostly by jackasses and with occasional supportive players.

I’ve played with both the Qt3 crew and lots of solo queues on EU and US and the only constant in LoL is how ridiculously aggressive and foul mouthed people are, it’s almost as if it’s mandatory to be a jackass in order to play the game, even (some) commentators are utter tits.

That said, it’s a great game to play with friends but soloing is and will always be noob-unfriendly (noob as in new player as well as inexperienced player).

4582

what’s the point of having a big dick if you have to wear pants!!!

cause you can see it, and also I’m a humble person!!!

4583

You’ve got different sticks. If someone gives your anecdote to an experienced LoL player, they’ll immediately go to the all-too-common person intentionally ruining the game of another by playing poorly, not listening to advise and being abusive in return (or just plain going AFK).

The sort of situation you’re talking about normally comes from us as “X was suffering in the game and thought he might quit because he hated it so much.” That only ever leads to support from us. I can’t count how many players we’ve brought through the ranks and continue to play with of all sorts of varied abilities.

It’s simple culture clash (of sorts), that’s all. McKnight has never told a player he outright is bad (except the actually bad ones like me and Chris and hey McKnight! You suck). McKnight’s also one of the few players that takes the game semi-seriously in the EU Mumble so there’s that sort of culture-clash too.

Calistas, I’ll break down for you why Corki’s a better champion than Tristana in a rough and ready fashion.

Overall, Tristana is built as a hard carry. She’s very item-reliant and has a long ramp-up time. This is not helped by her not being the most efficient farmer (no good AoE- her E doesn’t count!). Corki’s got a much faster ramp-up time and due to the burst potential of his abilities as well as the AoE nature of them, a much better ability to farm and a higher total damage potential. He’s a less hard carry.

Stat-wise they’re not much different. Corki gets a slightly better damage build and they’re almost parity on health. Corki has more mana but needs a lot more. They both have the same base movespeed (300 is standard for ranged characters. Melee are faster).

Ability-wise I’ll do a quick ability-by-ability breakdown:
Tristana’s Q is a pure steroid skill. It’s the main reason she scales so well into the late game, and it’s one of the better pure steroid skills in the game (there are some better hybrids like the frankly broken Impure Shots). However it isn’t much more than a steroid skill because it doesn’t need to be. It scales perfectly with AD. Corki’s Q, on the other hand, has some soft-CC utility and is an AoE attack. It softens up creep waves allowing him to farm well and the CC part of it can save his life in the way Dodge can. Tristana’s Q is better late-game, once she has items, but Corki’s Q has more early-mid utility.

You mentioned his CC not breaking channels like Trist’s R. Well, to be honest, Tristana shouldn’t be in the position where she has to break a channel. That’s the job of the supports and tanks (and Exhaust-carriers, if necessary). She should be concentrating on killing people. Stopping people killing her is the job of her team.

Both have escape moves on their Ws. Tristana’s has the on-kill reset and a CC component (more damage), Corki’s is faster, I think (point-to-point) and does more AoE damage (I think). About parity (I think).

Corki’s E is where he proves that he’s a better champion. It’s an AoE armour strip that also does a portion of his attack damage. A carry with an armour strip is ridiculous. Very few characters have resistance strips, and an armour strip on an AD carry adds that much more to his damage potential. It’s also a brilliant, brilliant farming tool. Tristana’s E is almost pointless. Yeah, it’s semi-useful for farming and it’s an anti-heal but it’s underwhelming on a ranged carry.

Ultimates are where Corki dominates. Rocket barrage gives him some massive, massive AD-based AoE burst damage. Load up a Big One with pokes, wait for a team fight and unload the whole lot. You don’t even have to aim to get a few kills. It’s a much more useful ability than Buster Shot, which is admittedly a good piece of CC.

Passives? Corki wins. His passive is, I contest, a stupid one. On-hit true damage on a carry? Seriously? Tristana’s is nice but not as good carry-wise.

The main reason, I hope you’ve picked up, that Corki is a better character is because he can farm that much better leading to heavier items and does AoE damage with good utility/on-hit effects. He’s just harder to play because his ability range is quite short and he’s a bit glass cannon. Tristana’s a classic Hon/DotA style massive-damage-to-a-single-character type carry.

4584

Tom, stop feeding!

That’s a strange history though. You fed with Karma (one of those games you forgot to buy boots but you had a Will of the Ancients, in the game afterward you had level 1 boots and a Will of the Ancients. Upgraded boots are almost always priority #1 after you get one item that upgrades your abilities for the level 6-10 game, and that you intend to build into something… so instead of turning 3 amplifying tomes into WotA, I would buy two of them (or just get the revolver) and then upgrade boots before getting WotA)… but then you got 16 kills with Shen (and built him correctly for the most part, though you have very little magic resistance).

4585

Strictly speaking isn’t she the hardest carry there is? One reason I drifted away from playing her is that it’s too boring. I like having skills and abilities I can actively use to farm or use in team fights. With her, it’s just Q. Buster shot is bascially a secondary escape skill/uber buster skill, which makes it somewhat interesting. But I don’t find her as fun as Sivir, MF, or Ashe.

4586

16 kills with Shen (a tank)… that probably wasn’t Tom playing :)

4587

Thanks for the tips, Pogo! That’s helpful to hear. Karma was definitely one of those instances where I was all, like, “this game is frustrating and I might as well quit”. But having Shen click like that was a real revelation and I was all, like, “Man, League of Legends is teh awesome!”

The interesting thing about that Karma game was that the dudes on my team were actually being supportive even thought I was doing terribly. Instead of telling me to GTFO and accusing me of feeding, one of the guys recommended that I just hang back and heal, which is what I tried to do. Not that it helped.

 -Tom
4588

Does that seem unusual for Shen? It seems to me his ultimate ability – teleport in to any teammate, healing him in the process – can get Shen a whole mess of kills.

 -Tom
4589

Thanks for the tips, guys!

Yes, Corki can farm like a mofo, and I do with him, I just have trouble killing people fast enough before they have either run away or the team fight is over. I just don’t know what I am doing wrong-ish. Perhaps I need a bit more attack speed and crits? My AD late-game is certainly quite high. You can see this from my played history I am sure.

I do like corki a lot, so perhaps I just need to keep playing. And I do love his ultimate, but my big ones will knock maybe 20% to max 25% health off a bad guy carry. Never more. Sure, that’s nice, but I am not wtfpwning, even when fed. Hmmmmmm!

4590

Not by a long shot. Sivir is and always has been the hardest ranged carry (Ricochet) and Trynd’s arguably the hardest melee carry. Well, he was, I’m not sure any more. Post-thirty/forty minutes Trynd hits for silly damage.

Witness: I once fed a Trynd a ten-minute Ghostblade and watched as he went 1v4 from the fifteen minute mark (eighteen minute IE). As in, I got the Trynd the kills and experience, partially because their jungler kept forgetting that you can’t flank Morgana. She’s a decent support now. She can’t carry any more.

Tom: Shen doesn’t get kills: he sets them up or takes the hit for his team. Take a look at his abilities and stats and tell me what he’s aimed at doing+. It’s not killing. If you’re using his ult to get kills you’re actually harming your team by using it to take kills from people that need them. I have a policy that if I’m not playing a carry I won’t push for the kill unless I don’t think the carry can get it and it’s an obvious kill.

Shen’s ult is used to save him when he gets ganked (if you’re good at it) or to turn fights into 2v1 or to shield a carry when they’re getting beaten on or occasionally, to jump in, taunt, take the death and let an assassin/carry get away.

Technically anyone can be a carry. Shen’s just one of the worst ones.

+Shen’s actually one of the better designed characters in terms of tying a theme into a character. Shen’s theme is balance and justice, and his abilities all revolve around equalising a fight for his team.

4591

malzahar is the hardest AP carry.

cue /evil_laughter

4592

I know you’re trying to be helpful, Kirian, but what you said doesn’t make much sense to me. And it kind of sucks that I thought I’d discovered something cool only to be told I’m doing it wrong. :(

For starters, I guess I should finally ask, “Uh, what’s a carry?” I understand all the other character descriptors, but have no idea what carry is supposed to mean.

-Tom

4593

Depends how you’re runed (ask l0l), Masteried (21/0/9) and itemised. Corki should be able to kill faster than Tristana and can start to take over games much faster. l0l is our Corki expert so I’ll hand off to him.

Tom: a carry is a character designed to ‘carry’ their team to victory, normally by outputting large amounts of damage. Two types of carry in this game, AP carries and AD carries. AP carries are those guys that throw a ton of abilities at you (this is inaccurate but will do for now) and kill you really quickly. AD carries are those that build attack damage, attack speed and crit items then do massive amounts of sustained damage.

You’ll need to explain fully what you’re trying to do with Shen but I’m kind of reticent about telling you how to do things ‘right’. It comes down to a couple of things- every character is designed around a specific job, and there’s normally a big clue in the abilities they have. So, if you look at Shen’s abilities he has a burst damage steroid skill (steroid skill = ‘buffs’ the character up for a short period), a damage reduction, a life-tap, a taunt/pseudo-blink (pushes the character and makes them ethereal for the duration) and a teleport shield. None of those really says to me that he’s a character designed to do damage- rather, he’s a character designed to absorb damage for others and distract enemies, or equalise fights. The big clue is in his ult name and what it does (Stand United, brings Shen to an ally who he shields) and the secondary clue is in his shield and taunt having great synergy in absorbing damage particularly for others. The fact he has a taunt is an indicator he’s not supposed to be doing damage- if you do a lot of damage you don’t want people attacking you because you don’t really want to die.

This means that he shouldn’t be looking to do a lot of damage and as such doesn’t need to buy expensive damage-dealing items but instead the marginally cheaper survivability items (to help him survive damage and do his interception/interference job better). This means he doesn’t need to get too many kills as his damage-dealing characters should instead to be able to afford their expensive items to do their job. So if Shen is jumping in and killing people he’s taking away kills characters that potentially need them should be getting.

Here’s one last big tip- Catalyst the Protector is a great early-game item, and Banshee’s Veil is a great item on any character.

Now here’s where McKnight reminds me that any character can carry, some are just designed for it. Shen is very definitely not. He doesn’t really do enough damage.

Addendum: just noticed, Tom, that you got his ult wrong. He doesn’t heal his target, he puts a shield on them (read abilities thoroughly! I’m guilty of skimming occasionally). I wouldn’t worry about doing things ‘wrong’, personally, as you’re just starting, but using Shen’s ult like that is a bad habit I wouldn’t want you to get into.
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them.

4594

Would you guys mind looking at my recent match with Yi and see how well I did picking out items?

I was trying to go for that Yi that kicked our asses in that game last night

4595

Generally you don’t get lots of kills with tanks, you get lots of assists because you are there for every team fight but just don’t have the burst damage to get kills. Although Shen with a lot of health gear can do decent damage, his role is to soak up damage and be there in every team fight saving his teammates with taunt or initiating team fights.

Some Shen beginner tips:

  • use taunt to go through walls, it becomes very difficult to catch a running away Shen.
  • you want to be watching the minimap and health bars as often as you can so you can port over and save someone or turn an unfavorable situation into a favorable one (e.g. a 2v2 becomes a 3v2). This actually makes Shen an advanced champ because it takes a long time for a new player to learn map awareness. However, you can still do well in lower ranked games without having omniscient map awareness.
  • this is a general tank tip but your items should be heavily dependent on the enemy teams composition. You should almost exclusively be buying Magic Resist, Armor or Health items.
  • Shen’s shield (W) is really good but requires quick reflexes

Why is the best tank in a game a ninja? Ok, he is no longer the best tank in the game since the nerf but still, a ninja tank?! I bet Tom and new players would automatically assume ninja = uber rogue DPS right?

4596

That first tip is a good one, but I wouldn’t give new players direct tips in how to play a character because I think they’re better, learning, trying then asking for advice. That way it’s open for people to find and fit characters to their play-style and learn them thoroughly but there’s a safety net to stop them doing silly things like support Pantheon.

4597

Rammus is the best tank in the game, but he is 100% always banned in ranked. Besides him, Shen would be #2 and Malphite #3,

4598

I disagree. I found leaguecraft champion guides to be invaluable when I started playing. Sure, I look at it now and can see lots of bad advice but for a beginner player, those tips were really useful. Why learn the long way how to do a flash Rammus bump? Actually the Rammus guide on there is an excellent read.

4599

Shen does quite a bit of burst damage with Ki strike (about 215 at level 18 with 2.5k health) plus his Q (230) for an impressive damage burst if he gets close, and doesn’t waste his Ki strike on a more tanky character in the beginning of the fight. With his dash he can close the gap quickly to a squishy character, but that’s only recommended if the enemy tanks are doing a poor job of harassing your carries. #1 priority, it seems to me, is for Shen to taunt any tanks that making it through the front line and “pull” them away from the squishier teammates.

With good teammates, Shen can dash to a carry to do impressive burst, using W (feint/shield) to soak up a little damage, and then use his ultimate during the teamfight to shield whichever squishy teammate is being attacked.

Also, dash takes a lot of energy. Never use it unless you can guarantee that it will hit the enemy champion. This takes experience.

I’ve gotten more used to holding SHIFT while casting spells, since you will automatically cast the ability in the direction of the cursor (or at the target that’s under the cursor). However, if you do this, make sure you LET GO OF SHIFT afterward or else your champ will walk to and auto-attack the nearest target, something you might not want happening.

Knowing when Ki strike is active is important. His hands glow purple and you hear an activation sound.

Also, what the fuck is up with the Stand United icon? It looks like he’s shielding either a dog, or Poppy:

Here’s a good constructive video on playing Shen. He’s not the best player (he only lands about 75% of his last hits on creeps, and doesn’t use his W when it’s obvious he’s about to take damage, it’s a PREDICTIVE PREEMPTIVE ability), but you’ll notice that he uses his Q very actively, on full-health creeps, and then auto attacks them. His health with Doran’s Shield goes from 25% to nearly 100% in the span of 2 minutes. Shen is a GREAT laning partner with another ranged character (in this case, Sivir) because the ranged can auto-attack the creep that has Shen’s Q and get back health.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxClQdOqqwo

Fucking hilarious kill there at the 11:55-12:10 mark, Sivir throws a boomerang and kills a tower-hugging invisible Teemo by accident.

4600

I guess that depends upon your definition of “beginner”. I won a match where the other team had a first time jungling Udyr in ranked.

I always feel Shen is over rated. He becomes less useful the longer a game goes because his ult isn’t really team fight oriented.

I really hope the new plant tank guy is worth playing, the current tank landscape kind of sucks.