Exhaust is always useful, acting as a slow and a heavy damage debuff. It’s just as useful at the start as at the end.
Ignite as noted is good in a situational capacity, it helps shutdown characters with high healing, it’s also a great way to guarantee a kill
on Tryndamere.
Flash can be used to escape as well as to initiate. It’s very useful in the latter regard on certain characters like Fiddlesticks or Annie. You think you are out of range and suddenly they are dropping a huge AoE stun right on top of you.
Ghost can be used as an escape but is also useful for chasing. Characters without any escape skills really benefit by taking Flash or Ghost.
Heal is pretty useless mid/late game.
Clarity sort of falls into same segment as heal but a bit less so. Occasionally still helps late game.
Smite, is virtually required on a jungler. Late game it helps guarantee that you wont have Baron stolen from under or you or conversely allows you to snipe Baron and steal it.
Teleport is a good utility skill, can be helpful all game allowing you to quickly get back to the front or to push a far lane.
Rally, I don’t see a lot.
Revive, really only useful on certain gimmick builds and teams.
I’ll also note:
Teleport, Rally, Revive, Heal, Clarity, Smite, Ghost, Fortify, Cleanse - All of these require little skill to use. Another reason new players love them.
Flash, Ignite, Exhaust - require some skill to use properly, and in Pro hands can be game changers.
In lower level games Fortify is amazing, and I don’t doubt you’ve found it very useful. However as you start playing with and against more skilled players you will find it becoming less and less useful, until it reaches the point of near uselessness. As it is, Fortify is never found on any serious team and is only somewhat useful in 5-man Fortify teams (which is an incredibly gimmicky team that attempts to 5man push a lane. You basically either kill an inhib by 20mins or you lose).
If it helps you, try to look at it like this. Every summoner spell in this game is conceptually good, this much is obvious or else why would they even be there? But not every summoner spell is as useful as others. That’s the point all of us more experienced players were trying to point out. Sure you could take Fortify, but to do that you sacrifice a slot that could be used for one of a “better” spell (The big 5, if it wasn’t already obvious, are Flash, Ghost, Ignite, Exhaust and Teleport. With minor nods to the usefulness of Cleanse on certain characters, Clairvoyance on support, Smite on junglers and Revive on Pantheon). Now since every single player in this game should run a Movement/Escape spell (Flash, Ghost), that means you are really sacrificing your only free slot to run a spell that in all honesty doesn’t benefit your team as much and also simply isn’t optimal. You can find a use for the other spells every single time they are off Cooldown, the same certainly can’t be said for Fortify.
Really? I could concede to Flash but Ignite and Exhaust require skill? They require the same skill as using Heal or Teleport: timing.
I’ve seen some pretty horrendous Exhausts/Ignites in my day. I’ve never seen a bad Heal though.
I have my own beef with Teleport and people not using it properly, so that’s a rant for a diff day ;)
How do you use teleport properly?
Played my first two normal games as Amumu, 2 wins and a combined 23/7/29. This little dude is the best. In my last game I went with a sunfire cape and an abyssal scepter and when I turned on despair faces melted. It was the good times.
Of course, now I’m a sad mummy because I missed the regifted Amumu skin. That thing is awesome. If someone gave me a button to press that would give me the regifted skin but would also kill puppies they wouldn’t even finish the sentence to explain it. That button would be pushed. Regifted Amumu beats the pants off of puppies. I guess first he puts the pants on, but then he beats them off. That’s what she said.
lol I forget how different it is playing in randoms - particularly<20
Pogo
5469
Morgana AND Katarina died 14 times, and Akali got a gunblade and starting working towards crit strike. Brilliant.
McKnight
5470
Speaking as someone who has all his skins… Yea, it’s pretty damn nice :)
Hanacker
5471
Just yesterday I was watching a ~1900 elo tree eskimo video where a fortify totally turned a late game fight around. One team had been dominating all game, got a little overconfident in pushing an inhib tower and a well-timed fortify after they over-committed helped win the fight. Team fights are important but there are still going to be times when you need to buy a few seconds to get in position to save a tower.
McKnight
5472
Like I said, all the summoner spells are useful. No one is trying to argue different :)
Point was, there are far better/more team efficient/optimal/arguably more useful spells to fill that spare slot.
Maybe fortify could be a great skill for at least one person to have in tournament, organized 5v5 games, where I’m guessing that fights under turrets are far more common.
Yep Morgana was probably the worst I have ever experienced.
McKnight
5475
It was a <20 game, so my guess was she was attempting to also get a Trinity Force (maybe a misconceived Ghostblade attempt)?
I’m saying this because my hopes for humanity will be shattered if somebody though a Phantom Dancer was a good idea for Akali… :)
maxle
5476
Infinity Edge is core on Akali, trufax
Just like Gunblade on Kog’Maw. Too pro ;)
Patch notes preview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj6SzK1DtAI
Very weird the talk about how long the death timer is early game, it’s almost nothing yet they say its too long. Good re turrets getting armour penetration. Otherwise fairly meh
Thank god no one is talking about my Malph build :)
I refuse to rise to your bait good sir ;)
