Getting back into writing music. Here are my first two tracks!
This one is a chill/relaxing drum and bass piece. It’s named “IQ Test” because it was me testing the waters of the intelligent D&B genre.
Jumping on the Elevator! by Logan IV
This one’s a bit heavier than the previous. There’s no real reason for it being named “Jumping on the Elevator”, I just kind of liked how that sounded haha.
Let me know what you think!
Top Picks: Twisted Fate, Annie, Rumble, Anivia, Orianna, Brand, Malzahar
Great Picks: Karthus, Vladimir, Nidalee, Mordekaiser, Fiddlesticks, Gragas, Akali
Good Picks: Zilean, Lux, Kassadin, Sion, Ryze, Cassiopeia
Situational Picks: Heimerdinger, Kennen, Kog’maw, LeBlanc, Morgana, Poppy
Bad Picks: Swain, Veigar, Katarina
Descriptions
Top Picks: These are the mages that shape the rest of the list. With the exception of Fiddlesticks, as he’s the only jungle mage, almost every team you can think of could replace one of the lower mages with one of these and get a better team overall. Some examples of ones that can’t would be a super campy Heimer/Nidalee comp, or a team focused entirely around kamikaze Karthus. These mages have tons of burst, a wide range of supporting abilities (Orianna’s shield, Anivia’s wall, TF’s ult, and the all have stuns/disables of some sort), and great initiation. The exception to this is Rumble, who just wins because his AP ratios stupid and he never dies. Dumb. (His ult is super good at initiating, though)
Great Picks: These mages can do well in a plethora of situations, but have a few weaknesses, such as the inconsistency Nidalee and Mordekaiser’s damage, the farm dependency of Karthus and Vladimir, or the short range of Akali. But other than these few weaknesses, these characters are extremely powerful.
Good Picks: All of these characters are very strong in some regards but have big weaknesses that the other team can exploit. For example, Zilean falls off hard late game if you don’t pair him with a really good, hybrid damage output carry like Irelia or Corki. The two characters I had trouble putting in this tier are Zilean, because he’s really amazing, just he fills more of a support role late game than a mage role, and Cassiopeia, because she’s very strong in lane, but I don’t really see her being picked at high levels except to counter specific characters (read: Rumble and Vladimir). She also requires an insanely good player, but you can see some of her potential on players like SYDTKO, SK Ocelote, and Hypnosiz.
Situational Picks: These characters are unordered in the list. Heimer you can pick for super defensive comps like the aforementioned Nidalee/Heimer push/poke strategy. Kennen and Kog’maw are both very strong on 3 mage teams, but it’s hard to carry a game with them in the standard US or EU style (1 or 2 AP carries per team). LeBlanc is an amazing counter to TF, but not great at much else (would like to see how she fares against Brand and Orianna more, though). Morgana is great when paired with certain characters, such as Corki, whose only real weakness is CC. Poppy is great if you’re Doublelift.
Bad Picks: Swain got nerfed hard and doesn’t really do much that other characters can’t do better (I wonder if he even still has the advantage against Vlad in lane…). Veigar requires too much farm and is just bad all around, his only good spell is his stun and it’s on too long of a cooldown, and his mana costs are atrocious. Katarina has an outdated mage design, as you can stop her damage super easily, whereas every good mage is either able to frontload all their burst (like Annie, who can do all her damage in a few seconds, then even if she gets focused down she’s still done her job) or is at least able to Zhonya’s and keep safe while it goes (Fiddlesticks, Kennen, Morgana, etc). Katarina can do neither.
AP Carries have been taken in a very boring direction ever since the original changes to Zhonya’s Ring, that gave it the 20% more AP passive. The best AP carries now are the ones who scale extremely well with AP, and are either super safe (Brand), have a lot of supportive options (Twisted Fate), or both (Anivia, Orianna). Before, the types of CC you brought, mobility, base damages, things like that were a lot more important, but that’s fallen off with recent item changes. Here’s hoping they’ll bring some of it back. WTB a high burst damage mage who doesn’t scale at all with AP 
So just a quick introduction to why I’m posting again: I went to a theme park today with Rockman, and he said I should!
Anyways, today I saw a thread on the LoL forums that was talking about people getting flamed for using “custom” builds. I think this is always an interesting topic as I love to build my characters in new and exciting ways, but I think a lot of people misunderstand what a custom build really means.
When you load up the game as, say, an AP carry; let’s use Annie for the sake of example; and you go mid, there are certain expectations your team has of you. One of these is that you will be dominant in the early-mid game, allowing for easier fights over dragon and such. Another is that you will have a lot of burst to take out that Ashe or Vayne who’s just really pissing everyone off. When you build and play standard, all of these expectations (within reason) are met. This is why it’s extremely frustrating for someone to go and do a DPS Annie build “for fun” or “because I like to build her that way.”
The last time I had a DPS Annie build, she picked Annie and immediately called mid. After everyone else had chosen (I forget the exact team comp, but it was very EU style with a bot lane carry + a support) we ended without anyone picking the AD carry, so I pick Ashe. I then proceed to do my runes and masteries, and at about 5 seconds left, Annie goes “oh i’m building DPS”. Now, aside from the fact that I only had five seconds to switch my character (which I did, to Malzahar), I found this extremely obnoxious for a couple of reasons.
1: She called mid, on a team where the carry is supposed to go bot. No other carry would take mid, and she shouldn’t expect it for herself if she chooses a carry.
2: Having a gimped carry on the team is something that can be dealt with, but you need to be able to prepare for it at the champion select. We were lacking heavily in damage.
3: She built it wrong.
Point number three is the one I want to focus on, as it is where a lot of the frustration comes from. In this case, she rushed a Youmuu’s, and then a Last Whisper. This is not just a bad build because it’s a DPS Annie, this is simply a bad DPS build. There is no carry in the game that should build like that. I think this is where a lot of people’s “custom builds” really have their trouble. For example, if you want to build tank on Mordekaiser, that’s fine; it’s a gimped build but it can work. But if you rush a Force of Nature, you have no damage; if you get a Spirit Visage, you’ll be just as tanky through the early game (and get that tank faster), while still getting some cooldown reduction. If you’re an AP carry, and you do something silly like rush a Haunting Guise, you are building your character wrong (there are simply better ways of getting those stats).
This is where a lot of players get upset when people call them out on it, and it’s also something that a lot of players can use to improve their game. Learn which items are good in which situations; for example, in TheOddOne’s Warwick guide, he advises people to only get Bloodrazors first if you both need the damage and won’t have trouble before getting them. If you need the damage earlier, get a Malady or a Wit’s End. Little changes like this can make a huge difference in the late game.
It really is like Starcraft, where players spend tons of time polishing their build orders to make sure everything works well. You can do the very same thing in League of Legends. And it should affect how you play as well. In Starcraft, when you just get that big tech unit out, or just finish an important upgrade like Stimpacks, that’s when you should make a big push (known as a “timing push”). In League of Legends, the same principle carries over. You should run and grab dragon as soon as your carry finishes his or her Infinity Edge, because that minimizes the chance that your opponents will have something to counter it. That’s a huge factor in determining how good an item is or isn’t. Going back to the Haunting Guise example, sure, the stats on it aren’t bad; but it’s not a big enough difference to be difficult to counter, or to win fights that you wouldn’t win anyways, and it has no upgrade paths, so it’s better to just sit and wait out a Rabadon’s Deathcap and then make a big push.
Final thoughts: item builds are important, really important, in maximizing the effectiveness of your character in League of Legends. Getting gold and spending it wisely are the two easiest ways to win, so learn your item builds, learn both WHAT is good, and WHY it is good, and be conscious about the decisions you make at the item shop. Also, buy wards.
First draft!
Note: debating moving a few characters to different categories. Mainly, Gangplank to tanky DPS and Kassadin to mage (despite him being uber tanky now). We’ll see.
Carries:
Tier 1: Ezreal, Kayle
Tier 2: Tristana, Kog’maw, Sivir, Gangplank
Tier 3: Ashe, Nidalee, Shaco, Pantheon, Twisted Fate, Kennen
Tier 4: Corki, Master Yi
Tier 5: Twitch, Tryndamere, Teemo
Mages:
Tier 1: Morgana
Tier 2: Anivia, Ezreal, Vladimir, Kennen, Annie
Tier 3: Master Yi, Veigar, Fiddlesticks, Poppy, Corki, Katarina
Tier 4: Akali, Karthus, Heimerdinger, Ryze
Tier 5: Kog’maw, Teemo, Malzahar, Evelynn
Tanks That Hurt More Than They Should (Tanky DPS):
Tier 1: Amumu, Garen, Udyr, Sion
Tier 2: Kassadin, Nasus, Rammus, Warwick
Tier 3: Xin Zhao, Olaf, Gragas, Singed
Tier 4: Malphite, Galio, Nunu
Tier 5: Blitzcrank, Cho’gath, Dr. Mundo
Tanks That Heal More Than They Should (Tanky Support):
Taric > Shen >> Alistar
Supports:
Tier 1: Janna, Zilean
Tier 2: Nidalee
Tier 3: Soraka
Tier 4: Heimerdinger
Willing to clarify any confusion and/or debate any character’s positioning, just post! I have to approve comments before they show up for some dumb reason but I promise you I will!
Also Urgot is not on any list because I don’t think he really feels any role well enough to be on any of the lists. If I put him on Tanky DPS, he’d be dead last.
Alright, the part of the guide most people will read. If you skipped the previous section, go back and read it. If you didn’t, it might even be better to read it again. Team composition is entirely irrelevant if you don’t have access to enough characters. Now, assuming you do, we can move on and get a few simple points out of the way. One. When you and your buddies are discussing team setups, be wary of falling into the trap of saying “This is our team; I play X, you play Y, he plays Z, she plays AA, and the robot plays Mundo.” If you all have one set champion for your team setup you are just asking to get countered hard. What if your key character gets picked/banned? What if the opposing team is running characters that are literally direct counters to your comp, you wouldn’t just keep picking it and hope you can win, would you? This is why, before even touching the concept of what to have on your team, you must always remain flexible in your champion choices. Try and get a few little combos available to you; my personal favorite is Nidalee, Warwick, and ideally Zilean, as this gives your team a huge exp advantage across the mid game. There are many little two or three champion combos to work with, and they’re going to be the easiest to capitalize on.
Sometimes, however, you’ll find that whatever combos you have thought up just aren’t practical. In these cases, the most important factor is your knowledge of all the characters. What is your team lacking in? Generally, a randomly picked team will be too heavy on single target DPS and lacking in AoE, support, or general pushing power. If your team doesn’t seem to be lacking in anything in particular, I’ve found that a safe bet is to just go with a character who can rip through a turret like Warwick, Nasus or even Tristana. This, or someone like Katarina who just does a lot of AoE damage. These seem to be the two universally useful champion skills, so while they may not be the best for a certain situation, they’re something.
Finally, when making a full team setup, you’re going to want to have a balance of everything with a focus in something for the most part. You can always try and get away with just using the best champions you can get, but sometimes that isn’t an option. If you can take a combo like Amumu/Fiddlesticks, then focus on AoE. If you get a combo like Nidalee/Warwick, then focus on pushing towers hard and fast. If you get Ashe/Janna, focus on kiting and trying to outlast your opponents. But always remember you need people to take hits, you need initiation, you need team fight-capable champs or combos, and you need map control. If you lack too much in any of these aspects then the opposing team has a good chance of just punishing you for it over and over. It’s not hard to force team fights or get in a decent pushing situation, so if you aren’t ready for things like that, pick a champ to make up for what you’re lacking. Shen, Amumu, Gragas, Malphite, etc, most of the tanks, are all great for initiating and being your frontline champs. All you really need is some way to close distance and take a bit of a beating (or dish out a ton of damage really fast; Annie is a great initiator, and Fiddlesticks can be decent but only in the right situation). Map control is a lot more than taking a Teemo or Shaco and calling it a day. Nidalee, even without traps, has powerful map control because of her mobility. Shen, TF, and Pantheon have very obvious map control with their global ultimates.
Really, if you’re looking for a balanced team composition, a very simple way to look at it is as such: Tank, Off Tank, Mage, Carry, and a wildcard. Here are some examples of each.
Tank: Shen, Gragas, Amumu, Alistar, Singed
Off Tank: Nasus, Olaf, Dr. Mundo, Udyr
Mage: Annie, Fiddlesticks, Veigar, Katarina
Carry: Ashe, Ezreal, Nidalee, Tristana, Twitch
Now, obviously many teams will deviate from this setup. However, if you can get these four core character types, you’ll probably have a well balanced team.
When it comes to your wildcard, most of the time you are not gonna want another squishy without changing either your mage or your carry (depending). A character like Zilean does great with squishies, but a character like Heimerdinger doesn’t. If you absolutely must bring a squishy, get another hard tank instead of an off tank. Having three characters that drop fast in a team fight is a recipe for disaster, unless those three are one hit wonders and you are trying to simply burst a team down, or you’re stacking support characters or something.
Obviously this is just a guide line, but it’s a good way of getting a relatively balanced team composition. You aren’t going to want to follow this template exactly for every match with your premade team, but it’s a good starting place for when you simply don’t know who to pick. Just remember all the pointers about character combos, pushing power, etc, and then choose a character to fill your team’s holes.
In this section, I was considering writing a guide to specific combinations of characters that work well, but these simply change all too often, and if the guide somehow became really popular, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for over centralizing these setups. Plus, most of the fun is figuring it out yourself!
Cheers,
-Logan
Part 1 at my blog at CABC’s Blog.
http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=146997
Man I laughed so hard at this
Cheers,
-Logan
So I didn’t end up making a blog post yesterday. By the time I was done gaming and stuff, I was in a bad mood; wasn’t the best day ever; and I just wanted to sleep. Today, however, was quite the nice turnaround from that. After going to lunch with some friends (Chinese food, woot) I spent the day with Liz. We didn’t really do much, but that’s ok, we got to talk and chill which is nice for everyone once in awhile. After heading back, I played some League of Legends. Won five or six matches, and only lost one, which is nice. And the one we lost, we did a sunfire cape team… lol, so bad.
So yeah, blog posts will probably be thin these next few days. Nothing really exciting has been happening. Gotta get to work on the LoL team comp guide part two… and also my D&D campaign… but I’ve been having too much fun just practicing drawing. I still can’t really get the whole “thinking right brain” thing down; I’m a very logical person overall, and I tend to be a left brain thinker and have been my whole life, but I’m getting better.
Anyways, I don’t have anything else to say. Gonna be boring the next few days, nothing really going on for me.
Cheers,
-Logan
In no specific order,
Gaming:
-Win a larger than local Smash Melee tournament
-Run a recognized League of Legends livestream
-Finish a D&D campaign, 1 to 30
Arts:
-Learn to draw at a satisfactory level. Nothing fancy, but able to put together some decent looking doodles
-Explore musical composition. I did finally finish a song (piece, technically *looks at Edwin*) though! E-mail if you’re interested, it’s not great, but it’s something
-Learn to sing. Again, nothing fancy, but I’d like to be able to hold a tune
Education/Career:
-Become a AAA-class video game designer
Life:
-Clean up my room
-Become less lazy overall
-Visit Europe, Asia, Africa, or South America. I want to, at least once, leave this continent
-Extension of the above: go on a plane
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A quickie tank guide for LoL!
All of this is being written off the top of my head, but I feel like tanks are both the most underrated and underused type of champions at low-mid levels of play, and one of the most devastating if played correctly. There are four things you must learn to have/be to maximize your abilities as one of these characters:
Dynamic:
-Tanks, even at lower levels of play, do not handle like a DPS or a support. They, more than any other type of champion, must build and play to their opponents’ team setup. At the most basic level, you wouldn’t want to build MR vs a team of 5 physical DPS, would you? However, it’s not limited to just your item build. A tanks playstyle changes with each team you face, and within each team fight of each match. You are the initiator, you are a disabler, and you are also the designator most of the time. It is your job to hold off those Annies and Ezreals long enough for your team to finish them off. So remember, as a tank, you’re the leader. You make the first move. Side note: if you’re NOT a tank, then you SHOULDN’T make the first move. Unless you’re built to, it won’t end well for you. Never be static. Taking a second or third best option is better than taking no option, so when given the chance, be dynamic and adapt.
Confidence:
The number one area where tanks at lower levels of play seem to fail. I always see tanks staying in the back of a group, or being deathly afraid of a turret. If you’re Nasus and that Ryze is getting away with no mana and no cooldowns and 10% health, run up to the freak and shove your big green staff… somewhere safe. Seriously though, turrets don’t hurt that bad. People don’t hurt that bad. Know your limits and take them to the fullest. If you end up dying, but you ace the other team and get a turret, or two, or an inhibitor, or baron, you did your job. I cannot stress this enough. Let’s say you’re Malphite, for a moment. A team fight starts, and you start to panic and wonder what to do. Just remember this: You’re a giant rock. Play like one. Get in there and start head butting people. Ult 2 people, ground pound another 3, pick a target, toss your shard out and beat the living crap out of him. After you’ve blown your cooldowns, you are little more than wasted space for your team. If you’re getting attacked, don’t run away! Run in further! Freak your opponents out, make them panic, make them think “HOLY FUCK ITS A FUCKING GOLEM,” not “Oh lawl that Malphite just used all his cooldowns.” Once people start panicking, they can’t coordinate and become easy pickings for the rest of your team. A tank doing his or her job is absolutely brilliant in a team fight, and it’s like a work of art to see one doing what they do best.
Commitment:
As covered in number two, as the tank, once you pick a target, don’t let up until all hope at killing them is lost. Even then, if it’s a team fight, either keep going or pick a new squishy to run over and headbutt into a wall. You’re large and you’re in charge, and when you pick your target, you want to make sure you do everything in your power to make their life a living hell for the duration of the teamfight/chase/what have you. Go in past a turret to get that last hit, or to knock them into your friends. Is it risky? Yes, it is, and that’s why it’s good. Take risks, be unpredictable, and most importantly, melt some faces. When you’re the big guy around (or little guy; hi there Amumu!) make sure everyone knows. If people aren’t scared enough to attack/CC you, you aren’t doing your job as a tank.
Leadership:
Perhaps the most important tool in a tank’s box. Rallying your allies behind you as you rush into a team fight is an amazing feeling, and keeping your team under control like that is extremely powerful. A lot of this was covered in number one, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much, but quite simply, take the initiative and do what your gut tells you to. Chances are it’s right.
All in all, you simply want to be aggressive and effective. This is tough for a lot of people. You’re going to fuck up, you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to have plenty of matches where you go 0/10 and everyone on your team hates you and thinks you’re the worst player in the world. But don’t be discouraged by these; learn from them. LoL, like any competitive game, relies heavily on experience and adaptation. Every time you make a mistake, the next time you’re in that situation, do something new. Eventually you’ll learn the limits of your character, and it’s an amazing feeling when you tower dive past two turrets, get a double kill, body slam over a wall, toss a barrel to knock back that Fiddlesticks just waiting to drain you to death and make it out of your opponents’ base with less than one hundred life to show for it. When your teammates simply have nothing to say but “Holy shit,” you’ve done your job.
Now, on to character choice. The following is a list of characters that can both fill the “hard tank” role and that I have enough experience as/with/against. For example, many see Nunu as a tank, but I have never used the character and do not know enough about him to give him a spot on this list.
Alistar: The king of once-was. For the newer players, Alistar used to be the single best tank in the game. He healed way too much, way too often, was impossible to kill, and absolutely destroyed turrets. Now, he is much more tame but he fills a similar role. He is a great tank for pushing teams, has solid initiation, two very good CC spells (a knock-up and a knock-back), his heal which is still very nice for sustaining a push, and an ult that might as well be an invuln & cleanse together. His passive allows him to do good damage to turrets, even without the massive OP combo of Sheen + his old heal. A very solid choice overall and he’ll see a lot more use when draft mode is out I’m sure.
Amumu: The go-to choice for AoE teams. He has amazing synergy with Nasus, Rammus, Twitch, Nunu, Gangplank, etc, and above all, Katarina and Fiddlesticks. Anyone with solid AoE damage can make use of his ultimate, but that is far from the extent of its power. Characters like Jax and Master Yi are basically allowed to straight up run through a team for a few seconds, which is often all they need towards endgame. As for his other abilities, his stun is nice and a great initiator, and the other two add up to a lot of damage overall in team fights. He may not do as much damage to turrets but around midgame he destroys creep waves and has, overall, some of the highest DPS output of any tank.
Dr. Mundo: Often picked as a hard tank, I do not feel this is his best role. He doesn’t have the same oomph that other tanks have when built that way, as his damage does not scale with anything after level 9. However, he deserves special mention for a few reasons. For one, I absolutely love this character. He’s good at every phase of the game, has map control, rapes turrets, and above all is very fun to play. He also only needs one item- Spirit Visage- to become one of the best tanks in the game. Due to his reliance on Spirit Visage as is, he has a lot of synergy with Soraka and other healers, though all tanks do. Overall, on Summoner’s Rift he’s a good choice, not the best though and should definitely be built for DPS in my opinion; the tank build simply isn’t strong enough.
Gragas: My current tank of choice. This man is a beast. I build him for AD/Tank, and he fills both of those roles extremely well and can switch between the two builds at ease thanks to the fact that they both rely on his Drunken Rage. Overall, this man is a walking, booze-filled abomination that can run through an entire team. I love this guy and would not hesitate to put him as a tier two champion. The only tank who is better overall right now, in my opinion, is Shen, and even that is iffy. Gragas simply has amazing initiation, chase, damage output, and one of the best tanking abilities in the game (pretty much second only to like, Defensive Ball Curl in its utility, maybe even better since it is always up). He pushes like a beast too. I highly recommend all tank fans learn him, and he should be one of your top picks as a tank in draft mode. He synergizes particularly well with Taric, in my opinion, as the combination of stun/slow and Taric’s AoE and heal, and Gragas’s ability to dominate a lane and destroy turrets in mere seconds is amazing early game, and late game, those two on your frontline are almost invincible. Also, he can solo 1v1 and 1v2 extremely well, and can jungle too. One of the most versatile and enjoyable champions Riot has added so far.
Malphite: An extremely awesome and fun to play champion. His major issues are mana and cooldowns. He’s a great jungler, which gives a huge advantage in the current metagame. A good bit of AoE, a great initiating move, some decent chasing (great chasing later on in the game), the bonus of jungling, and an awesome passive. Pick him against physical heavy teams. Fills mostly the same role as Rammus.
Mordekaiser: I will say this right now. I do not see Mordekaiser as a hard tank on any viable team. Mordekaiser fills a few niche roles: for one, he is one of the best characters at soloing 1v2, right up there with characters like Nidalee. However, he may not be the best choice for this since he can’t really carry a team to victory. His second niche role is that he makes an amazing aura platform. The reason for this is that he can make use of every stat except mana/mana regen, and he isn’t very item dependent and farms incredibly well. If taking him as the only tank on your team, I would still build him for auras, as he is pretty naturally tanky. Other than that, building him for DPS or magic penetration can work well. As I get better though, I start to see why this guy is more of a pubstomper and less of a viable champion in his own right. Don’t get me wrong, he still works on a team well, but he’s for sure a tier four champion, at least in my eyes.
Nasus: Oh. My. God. I love this guy. Not only does he have some of the coolest animations and voice acting, but he’s one of those tanks with some extreme miracle potential and he cannot be ignored. The general strategy is to farm up your Siphoning Strike until you hit level eleven and get your second level ultimate, at which point you can really just go around raping team fight after team fight. You literally become the best character in the game for the duration of your ult. His slow is, as far as I know, the most powerful slow in the game and it shows (Nunu’s ult may slow for a bit more, but still). People look like they’re snared by the end of Wither. As far as builds go, some of my staple items include Sheen, Aegis of the Legion, and Mercury Treads. Other items that work well for him, I’ve found, are Banshee’s Veil, Chalice of Harmony, Randuin’s Omen, and Stark’s Fervor. The way I play Nasus, Sheen is the only damage item I find myself needing, and I still hit for some really stupidly high numbers on my SS. However, late game SS crits with an infinity edge are freaking hilarious, so while it’s not the optimal build in my opinion, it’s still a very fun and effective one. Overall, most people tend to build him for pure DPS which doesn’t use him to his full potential. His best damage output in a team fight comes from his ult, and the armor reducing abilities of Spirit Fire, neither of which need any AP at all to be effective. As a side note, I used to run magic pen reds as this guy, but recently switched to armor pen and I definitely feel they’re better despite a lot of his damage being magic. This is probably due to magic getting an easy 15% penetration and the armor pen runes giving almost twice as much penetration. As for lane mates, if you can get a Soraka, do it; it very well may be the most powerful lane in the game as far as pushing goes. Other than that, if you’re taking Teleport or Clarity (I don’t) or get a Chalice plus MP5 runes (what I do), you can do well with pretty much anyone who either has a stun or can destroy turrets. Once again, this guy fills a similar role to Gragas and thus works well with a lot of the same characters. Overall an amazing champion, and definitely should be considered a top pick for amazing survivability, jungling skills, damage output, massive AoE, and chasing capabilities with Wither/Randuin’s. A tier two champ at the lowest, and I would not be surprised at all if I saw him in tier one.
Rammus: A fun tank who used to be extremely effective. He’s mostly outclassed by Shen now, but will be a good second choice. He’s a brutal counter to melee carries like Master Yi, and can push well, as well as put out some great AoE DPS with tremors. I wouldn’t take him as a first choice tank, but as a second pick, he does everything a tank needs to do reasonably well. He has the most trouble with casters, as compared to Shen/Gragas/Alistar/etc, he has no pure damage reduction, and MR is a lot less effective against casters than armor is against physical DPSers.
Shen: Probably the current best tank out there, even with the recent Feint nerf. He has global map presence with his ultimate, and an AoE taunt is way too good, not to mention a very powerful laning phase. Honestly I would put him below Nasus and Gragas if I made a tier list, but others disagree with that. There’s really nothing special about him; he does well with anyone, and can make almost any team composition a lot better. Definitely fun to use as long as you don’t mind being labeled as a try hard. Items without too many mana bonuses (Rylai’s, Leviathan, Force of Nature, Thornmail, Randuin’s Omen, etc) are all good choices for him, as is Banshee’s Veil if you need the bubble is always a good investment.
Sion: A rare AP tank that actually works. I would put him in an off tank role on a team, though. In my opinion he has the best stun in the game, and with two abilities (one of which is a shield) on a 1:1 AP ratio, building him AP is the way to go. I’ve never done an AD or pure tank build so I cannot comment on those. As far as items go, as far as I know pure AP is good enough for him. Again, not the first choice, but definitely viable.
Taric: Healing is OP right now, and Taric’s heal is extremely good. The combination of a powerful laning phase and amazing pushing, as well as a great stun and general team fight presence with built in AoE armor/damage buffs make him a great choice for almost any team. Try to pair him up with someone else who has a stun, or someone who can drop a turret early game like Ezreal or Kayle, if not another tank.
That’s all for now. Hope someone makes use of it!
Cheers,
-Logan
Hello there, So Cash readers =)
For those who don’t know (as I’m pretty sure this is mostly an EVE Online thing), I’m Logan, online alias CABC. I’m a friend of AtomicStarfish in the real world, and through him I met Rockman and Dark Spartan, as well as the rest of the group who don’t post on here. For those who are interested, you can find my blog over at [http://cabcgaming.wordpress.com], but all of my posts on there will be on here as well.
You know, I’ve been browsing a lot of art recently looking for pictures to use on these blog entries. Drawing is something I’ve always wanted to learn how to do, along with singing. For some reason, though, I’ve never gotten around to learning either of them, not even as a self taught hobby. I kind of put them up in the same group with musical composition and the likes; it’s like, as I get better at something, I learn that the more I know about it, the less magical it seems. When I was younger, I could hear a song for just a song, a thick wall of metal coming straight at me or a light and uplifting piece of electronica dancing around my ears. Now, when I listen to a song I hear the melodies and the harmonies, I hear the individual drums, my mind naturally tries to break the song down and analyze what the composer was thinking. I still love my music, but I feel like I’ve lost something. Even still, I’d love to be able to draw. As someone who is downright awful with words (I’m pretty much a walking dictionary definition of “Socially Inept”), being able to express myself through pictures would be an awesome talent to have. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll see a piece of my art up at the top of one of these posts.
In the gaming world, today was a pretty epic day for League of Legends. We had a few really close matches, and we won almost every match we played, putting me back up to like +34. AtomicStarfish is loving Kog’maw, and he’s pretty fun to lane/team with so it works out nicely. Unfortunately, I lost the one match I played today as Soraka 
was hoping to bump myself up from a 49/25 win/loss to a 2:1 ratio, but oh well, can’t win them all. Unfortunately it was my first loss with Soraka in two or three weeks. As far as the new patch goes, overall, I’m extremely impressed that Riot Games is implementing a lot of the changes the community has been asking for for a while. They screwed Veigar up pretty bad, but I’m sure they’ll fix his bugs soon and ultimately end up a lot more viable than before. Other than that, the only change I don’t like out of the entire patch was removing Ezreal’s heal; I feel like he’s lost almost all of what made him fun, but for balance reasons it made sense. I just hate to see some of the more unique heals, such as Taric’s Radiance, Rally, and now Ezreal’s Essence Flux being removed. Making miraculous saves with those moves was always fun.
Overall, the metagame is moving to a much more balanced and competitive scene and the number of completely unviable champions is dwindling. I’m impressed with Riot. The new skins are amazing as well; Goalkeeper Blitzcrank is hilarious, and French Maid Nidalee looks nice in game and has a very well made cougar form. The others are great too, but I’m very excited for the Gangplank skin shown in one of the screenshots in this post; the website is currently down, so I can’t find the exact picture right now.
Cheers,
-Logan
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CABC
