Do not play Alistar yet!

He is bugged as hell. The bugs that I've found for Alistar are:

1. Base stats incorrectly shown, especially the base HP. You will seem to have more HP than you actually do.
2. Trample bugged. Alistar turns blue when you use any skills.
3. Trample pathing bugged. Sometimes while in Trample, Alistar will have severe pathing issues. Plus the fact that Trample interrupts some skill animation, which is similar to lag.
4. Alistar's Pulverize is bugged. I believe the range on Pulverize did increase, but only the damage side of it, not the stun!
5. You can no longer combo Headbutt into Pulverize in mid air. Not sure if it's a bug or not.

Why is the hype level for Rumble under 9000?

A new champion's hype level is demonstrated by the amount of threads created by impatient LoL players who can't wait to get their hands on it. We all remember how hyped up Jarvan IV "the Dragon Knight" was in his pre-release stage. Jarvan boasted huge damage potential and teamfight capabilities, as well as exciting new mechanics that guaranteed his success as a new champion. We also remember Renekton having the same amount of pre-release hype for similar reasons. Before Jarvan and Renekton were released, I remember passing by the LoL forum and spotting tons of "we want XXX" or "is XXX going to be [w.e]" threads. For Rumble, however, not many people seemed to care about his actual release; even less players would rush to buy him on the first day of release. 

Analysis of Patch 1.0.0.116

Aside from the release of the new champion -Rumble, Riot is going through some major overhauls for a few older champions: Alistar, Fiddlesticks,  Gangplank, and Xin Zhao. Overall, Riot is moving in the right direction by encouraging the general LoL population to pick them up again.

Shaco - A bit in-depth guide (part 1)

DANGER

I played more ranking games today with Shaco. Even though I was extremely unlucky during my regular jungling routine (first game I got crit twice by Lizard, second one our Ashe literally took my Red buff), I continued to dominate the entire map with Shaco. Against low-and-mid ELO uncoordinated teams, Shaco is simply too powerful and versatile. Although I won't be cocky and write an entire guide for playing Shaco, I will share my experiences playing with him, and what worked (very) well for me. 


First I would like to show my appreciation for Reginald, if I didn't watch his video guides, I would still be an average noob Shaco knowing only how to gank and backdoor without any overall strategies. I do not believe everyone else who watched his videos (probably not all of them like me) had a "brainblast" like I did. But before I talk about my Shaco enlightenment, here is the link to Reginald's Shaco guide:


http://www.solomid.net/guides.php?g=373

First day back in ranked - utterly shocked

What's up guys? I am finally done school for the year! Time to play ranked games! Also, I will try to update this blog on a daily basis now that I have time.

I've been preparing for solo-queue ranking games for a while now. Aside from my game-killer Anivia, I picked out Shaco and Alistar for my secondaries in case I get the last pick on the remaining roles (tank and jungling). Now I had my doubts with those champions that I've picked for ranked; they're very good champions, but also extremely team dependent. In my opinion, Anivia is one of the best champions in the game with a good team. In solo-queue, Anivia's weaknesses (slow movement speed, blue buff reliant, sub-par survivability) can be easily exploited by the other team due to the lack of coordination on your own team, or the downright ignorance of Anivia's capabilities by some of your teammates (most of the time). My previous ranking games experience involving Anivia has been lackluster; I would expect even worse team performance involving Anivia after the several nerf hammers. However, I stick with her because she is the best I got, and I have friends in high ELO who made it there using Anivia.

I picked Shaco as my second main after I fell in love with watching Reginald's Shaco. Shaco has the ability to control the map and apply tremendous pressure to the enemy team while being almost ungankable. Plus, he can fulfill the role of a fast jungler. I've had tons of success with Shaco in normal games, so I brought him over to ranking games as one of my mains. However, I had my doubts with Shaco's ability to carry solo-queue teams due to his absolute incapability in teamfights under un-fed situations. Furthermore, the fact that most players in my ELO range are incapable of understanding Shaco's role and the concept of "split-pushing" could mean that playing Shaco in solo-queue would result in disaster. Nonetheless, there are high ELO Shaco players who made it out of low-mid ELO using Shaco, so it's definitely possible.

Lastly, I've my trusted roaming Alistar for my third main. Roamers are beasts in all ELOs, especially low-mid ELO because there are usually tons of bad laners who don't know how to play against Roamers. Alistar can also fulfill the role of counter-jungling. I've had games where I sabotaged enemy junglers by "visiting" them when they are doing Blue Golem or Red Lizard. By making sure the enemy jungler can't jungle fast, you are securing an eventual win for your team. Alistar is also very team dependent. I've had games where I wrecked the entire enemy team through ganking in early game, just to see our own team feed like noobs and throwing away the game winning advantage. Very unfortunate.


As I've always said, I don't believe in the concept of ELO hell. I remember it was Reginald (or someone else) who said that ELO hell is a mere concept that exists in every ELO; the "hell" comprised of bad players who either refuse to play the game as a team, or severely lack the knowledge and skill to play at an adequate level. I played some ranked games today, and I was very shocked at the level of average players. It seems as if they just started playing LoL. To avoid any biased opinions to due sheer disappointment and frustration, I will wait until I've played more ranking games to share my experience with all of you!


Good luck and have fun!

What's new(2)?

First of all, reallyyyyyyy excited that I won the SoloMid Guide Contest. You can see how excited I am right now :3


By winning this contest, I am one giant step ahead of achieving my ultimate goal - Spread the love and appreciation for the righteous queen of LoL: Anivia. (Haha, just kidding I am not that corny). Ever since I created this guide half a year ago, I realized how under-appreciated Anivia was as a champion; how she was only seen as a "no-skills OP champ" or a "underwhelming burst caster"; Anivia offered a level of depth in her gameplay that no other champion can mimic, not even Trundle and his wall.  I felt the public misjudged her. At that time, and even now, there are no other Anivia guides that truly teach the players about her mechanics and gameplay style. By creating this Anivia guide, I can make a difference and truly help those who wish to learn how to play her, and encourage other players to take a deeper look at her. I felt I have done that over the months.


As of now, I have final exams to prepare for, so this week I can't make more updates. But everything will be finished soon, and you can expect daily content updates ^^


Good luck, and as always, have fun!


SoloMid Guide Contest thread: http://www.solomid.net/forums/index.php?/topic/7079-solomid-guide-contest-winners/

My Anivia guide on SoloMid: http://solomid.net/guides.php?g=87

(Outdated for now) Anivia guide on Mobafire: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/read-announcements-first-controlling-anivia-13978

My Shaco Replay

In this game, I carried a team of feeders with Shaco through Map Control strategy. Our Teemo fed hard, enemy LeBlanc was godlike in early game. But I managed to pull through for our team at 50+ minutes. I am an average Shaco, but I improve extremely fast, so you can learn from me as well.

48min- fun fun fun begins, triple lane push strategy
56min- triple inhibitors down!

You need LoL Replay Recorder to play this file.

LoL Replay Recorder: http://www.leaguereplays.com/

Shaco Replay: http://www.2shared.com/file/U9xBmC0c/replay_06-04-11_00-29-38.html


p.s. there are some trolling every now and then, so just ignore the chat box.