Release Notes v1.0.0.112 Brief Overview

First of all, screw Jarvan, screw patch notes, new Anivia skin!!! =)

SOMEONE GIVE ME A HELL YEAH

Sorry, excuse my excitement. Let's be professional about this...HEXTECH ANIVIA AND REBUFF Wooooooooooooooooo YEEEAAAAHHHHH! (pronounce: Lil Jon")


Sorry again, don't know what happened...stupid laptop keyboard and twitchy fingers >.>


The patch notes link is here if you haven't seen them yet. The patch will be done tomorrow, hopefully. 
http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=549872


Couple of things I want to touch up on. First of all, this patch should be called "all about Jarvan, baby". He is a very hyped champion. All of you with IP/RP saved up (4.8k, yes), this is a champion you need to buy just for the coolness. I won't speculate about his skills; he will be released tomorrow. I will talk about the game mechanic changes in another entry soon.

Common Misconceptions About Items - Void Staff vs. Abyssal Scepter

Today will be a rather brief article about casters. The main theme will be magic penetration, which will be abbreviated from here on out as MPen.

With the introduction of Rabadon’s Deathcap, it’s plausible for casters to reach obscene amounts of ability power now, exceeding 500 if a caster is fed (and he won’t even need Mejai’s Soulstealer!). If you see an 800AP LeBlanc run up to your, what’s your first thought? I’m going to have to go with “Oh, shit.”

Yet let’s say that she’s got a Rabadon’s Deathcap and multiple Archangel’s Staves. With all that AP, she’s still only got around 30 magic penetration from her boots and runes – less if she doesn’t have these.

Whenever a person sees that the majority of the damage they took was from a caster, especially burst casters like Annie, Ryze, or Veigar, they go out and buy magic resist items. Regardless of whether you’re a tank or a carry, a good player will adapt his build to counter his enemies. Say you get the most logical choice – a Banshee’s Veil. That’s 50 magic resist right there (I won’t even talk about the bubble).Say you play a typical 30 magic resist squsihy champion. Against a mage with typical 30 magic pen, you have 0 MR and are now taking the full brunt of their abilities. Yet with one Banshee’s Veil, that 50 magic resist negates a good 33% of their damage. Buy an Abyssal Scepter after that and half of their magic damage is down the drain.

Angry German Kid Plays LoL

CLASSIC

New Ryze Playtesting

Caucheka at you again with an update to yesterdays post.

This has definitely been the best rework I've ever seen. (and the only one I've seen for that matter.) Yesterday I doubted the machine gun analogy but now I see how it really works. Seeing as how much I posted yesterday, I don't really think this post will reach half the length of the last one (excluding pictures).

So for starters, lets see where the machine gun analysis comes into play. Maxing out cooldown reduction, (shouldn't be that bad, you only need 20% from items or runes, seeing the 9% from masteries and the built in 10% on overload.) will bring Overload down to a whopping 2.1 second cooldown. Combined with his passive which reduces cooldowns by one second when he casts a spell. (No, it doesn't work on the spell you just cast it on.)

So for example, casting q followed by an instant w will bring q down to a 1 second cooldown. followed by another q and then e, and then another q.

Ryze Rework Has Been Revealed

Besides the new champion Maokai, the biggest thing this patch is the new and improved Ryze. The patch hasn't come out yet but they did release the patch notes. After my post on Maokai I will have one on how the new ryze plays out, but for now we'll have to stick with what we know and theory craft.


An analysis on Ryze, Old vs New


Overload:
Overload is Ryze's signature skill, a high damage bolt of energy that not only scales off of ability power, but also scales off his maximum mana. Obviously the bread and butter of any Ryze assault, and the rework still sticks true to this deliciousness.


Old Overload:

• 2/4/6/8/10% cooldown reduction as a passive effect
• 50/90/130/170/210 base damage, plus 45% of his ability power and 10% of his max mana
• 11/10/9/8/7 second cooldown
• 50/65/80/85/110 mana cost
• 600 range and 1200 missile speed

New Overload:

• 2/4/6/8/10% cooldown reduction as a passive effect
• 30/55/80/105/130 base damage, plus 20% of his ability power and 10% of his max mana
• 3.5 second cooldown
• 70 mana cost
• 675 range and 1400 missile speed

Obviously the biggest change is that while nearly slicing the damage in half, they also sliced the cooldown in half. Along with that, the mana cost has been set to 70 at all ranks, and they increased the range and the speed the missile travels.

National ESL: Solomid vs. CLGaming

This is the finals game of National ESL LoL League of Qualifier Cup #1: Teams SoloMid.NET vs Counter Logic Gaming.

Sorry guys I will be posting more a lot after a couple of days once my mid-terms are over. For now, our other contributors (welcome Mobafire Vet, Caucheka!) will be covering for me.

The new patcher update - Replay sooner?

"Secondly, the new Patcher represents the first stride forward on the road towards a polished replay system. Replays are processed by the game through saved command sets. With the League of Legends game engine being updated so frequently, replays would currently break every two weeks. While there is still work to be done, this new Patcher will be able to launch older versions of League of Legends, allowing successful replays regardless of how long ago the game may have taken place."


Does this mean we would get the official replay system soon? Probably not.


Riot responds with the new patcher update after being one-upped by a random group of programmers who created the first working replay function for League of Legends (leaguereplay) last week. In this announcement, Riot claims this new version of patcher will be "the first stride forward on the road towards a polished replay system." Riot included other features such as faster patching, installing, and error fixes, but they are merely dressings to the main course. Riot could have fixed these known bugs in any of the previous patches.

New League of Legends Patcher

Maokai - the next tier 1 tank?

You know you're are screwed when a tree is chasing you. 

KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

Maokai, the Twisted Treant, is Riot's latest attempt to make up for their streak of disappointing champion designs since Trundle. From what I have seen so far, Maokai seems to be quite a solid attempt to end the streak. Maokai is a tank; most likely built quasi-tank judging from his abilities. While Maokai possess immense teamplay potential, he is also a direct counter to the current "team AOE to win" meta-game. 

Maokai the Twisted Treant

[cool stuff bro] unofficial Replay function (tested!)

League replay tool

Ya that's right, finally there is a replay function to record LoL games with ease. Apparently, someone beat Riot to the game by creating a fully functional replay tool which Riot promised to implement but so far failed to accomplish. I have downloaded and tested this feature myself -it works almost perfectly. Pros and cons (bugs) I found with this recorder so far:

[cool stuff bro] Ace client 3.0

Common Misconceptions About Items - Infinity Edge vs. The Bloodthirster

Another article today from Jebus McAzn on item theory. Today, I'll be talking about the war between two items that many DPS carries want to have, but only need or can afford to get one at a given moment. These items are Infinity Edge and The Bloodthirster, respectively. While you all should certainly know the stats for these items, if you don't, here they are:


Infinity Edge
+75 Attack Damage, +20% Critical Strike Chance
Passive: UNIQUE - Critical hits now deal 250% damage instead of 200%
Cost: 4080 gold
Recipe: B. F. Sword+Pickaxe+Cloak of Agility


The Bloodthirster
+60 Attack Damage, +15% Life Steal
Passive: Gain an additional 1 Physical Damage and 0.25% Life Steal per kill. Maximum of +40 Damage and +10% Lifesteal. Bonuses are lost upon death.
Cost: 3200 gold
Recipe: B.F. Sword+Vampiric Scepter


So we can see that when you farm a Bloodthirster up to its full stacks, its stats actually become:
+100 Attack Damage, +25% Life Steal

Karma overview and build

Karma build

Check out my Karma build here: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/karma-cdr-hp-ap-support-55187#lastcomment


Overview
Karma is a well-balanced support champion. She is easy to pick up but difficult to master, especially when it comes to perfecting her Spirit Bond skill. Karma can put out a decent amount of nuking power if she desires, but her true strength lies in her arsenal of support skills. Karma's persistent speed buff, AOE heal, and shield can turn the tide of a teamfight in one skill set rotation. The Mantra bonus allows Karma to be prepared for all kinds of situations and adjust accordingly. Perhaps what I found most amusing is her Spirit Bond skill. Proper usage can slow down and damage all of your enemies while speed up all of your allies during a teamfight. A team chase can lead to an ace if Spirit Bond is used properly. 


I would suggest buying her. She is definitely one of the better 3150 IP champions.