Corelli

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Posts posted by Corelli

  1. Posted

    The great thing about the DF controls is that they actually tell you something very important about the game: that the Dwarves are not under your control, that they are their own "things" living their own lives and that while you may be able to direct them, they have no particular compulsion to always follow you. In short, they are emancipated, to a degree. Many other aspects of the game are out of the player's control, and even out of the creator's control, owing to the procedural generation of content.

     

    It's not often that the process of learning a game's controls so effectively illuminates what the game is about. I think it's pretty cool.

  2. Posted

     Yeah, Bengi is a really weird case. Montecristo calls him streaky, and I think it's true. There was a point during the regular season where he was bar none the worst player on SKT and close to being replaced by T0m, but to my eyes he was the best jungler at worlds this year, better even that Clearlove who I thought was maybe the best jungler in the world up until that point. I Just don't know what it is, but Bengi is going to have two champion skins now and the only other person who has done that is Faker, the best player in the history of the game.

     

     

    I can't believe we're having this conversation about Bengi when 6-8 months ago people were demanding he be replaced because he was a tire fire in the jungle. I would for sure take KaKAO over Bengi. I'd maybe take a couple other junglers over him too, but he's never been about style and flashy play. He's always been about warding the hell out of the jungle and solo lane synergy.

  3. Posted

    Frankly, I think KOO has basically had one way of playing the game that they've been really good at the whole season, which is to play exceptionally passively for about 30 minutes then winning via late game macro and teamfights, and SKT is about the worst team you can play that style against.

     

    It doesn't hurt that SKT had arguably the best toplaner, midlaner, and jungler (!?!) playing at worlds.

     

    Also, there are only two repeat champions (unless you're counting SKT's coach, kkoma): Faker and Bengi.

     

    With regards to Faker in season 3, you have to remember that season 3 worlds was primarily won on jungle/mid synergy. If you go back and watch those games, you'll see Bengi basically camping the midlane and warding for the midlane constantly. Season 5 was much more toplane focused, and not just on SKT - all the successful teams had great toplaners who were given a large share of their team's gold and asked to carry.

     

    Interesting Faker stat: Faker actually received the smallest percentage share of gold of any mid on the teams that made it out of groups, but did the most percentage damage of any mid. My take? It may not have been as flashy as season 3, but Faker absolutely dominated.

  5. Posted

    The LoL meta is kinda funny to me since it worked about the same as the CDEC strat (only it is the radiant bottom tower that is important to take early, not the mid tower) at TI. It makes sense though because the overall idea in League and DOTA is essentially the same -- you want to control the map and creep equilibrium in your favor, while maximizing gold and XP as efficiently as possible, and you want to do it with picks that won't get punished for it.

     

    There are actually two very different thought processes on how to play the early game in LoL in this meta.

     

    The "western" laneswap (this is a bit of a misnomer as it wasn't really created by western teams, but w/e) is one where you send 3-4 players to a lane in the early game to take the turret very quickly and "bounce" the minion wave off the turret. Ideally, this deprives the opposing toplaner of a great deal of early experience and gold. You then leave either your ADC or your toplaner in that lane to soak up all that farm.

     

    The "Eastern" laneswap (again a misnomer) favors not taking the early turret but, instead, bouncing one wave off that turret to create a "freeze" in that lane and then leaving your ADC in that lane to both get all that farm and to force the opposing toplaner out of that lane. As a ranged champion, ADCs are often able to zone a toplaner off the wave if that toplaner doesn't have someone else in his lane. The Eastern laneswap has a higher potential of depriving the opposing toplaner of farm, but taking down an early turret allows for vision control and invading the enemy jungle on whatever side you've taken the turret.

     

    Both of these styles have their strengths and there really isn't an East/West dichotomy between teams that adhere to each respective strategy, although the western style does seem to be performing better in the early stages of groups. Obviously achieving sound results with either of these styles is highly depending on early vision and obtaining accurate information about where the other team is starting.

     

    What's  interesting to me is how poorly LGD is performing. I really thought they were the 3rd best team in the world, and they likely aren't going to make it out of groups.

  6. Posted

    I'd argue that tends to be Riot's diplomatic way of stepping into a region. Every conqueror who ever approached a city has said "Just let us in and we'll let you live as you always have done." But I think the truth is that Riot can't stop themselves from phasing out these third party tournaments. I don't think they banned LoL tournaments in the West, either. But they make the competitive environment incredibly difficult for those tournaments who now can't get top teams (because they're tied up playing in the LCS) and because hardcore fans aren't interested in watching those tournaments because they know they don't mean as much as the LCS.

     

    It's hard to imagine that a Riot-run LPL is going to make it more difficult, though. LPL teams already play billions of games, and they still make it to the third party tournaments which have no effect on LPL standings.

  7. Posted

    There's nothing wrong with SK being relegated, no... but I have to admit sometimes I'm concerned by the churn in the mid-to-lower tier teams. Teams have such a short timeline to turn things around before they're out of the LCS and into Challenger where it can be a bit harder to get sponsor support and attract strong players. The concept of relegation is fine, but it happens in this compressed time-frame that sometimes seems at odds with the goal of building a strong league. SK had a bad summer, and they're gone. Same thing could have happened to C9. Easily, and all because of a difficult captaincy transition. That worries me a little.

     

    Yeah I hear you re: relegations. I'm honestly not sure where I fall. Some teams, like CW, clearly deserve to be out of the LCS, either because they simply lower the level of competition too much or because their management/organization is so bad (CW players were living without furniture and internet at the beginning of the split, which makes no sense for an org that has been in the LCS before and which has plenty of experience running teams in other games as well). But yeah, I would have been disappointed to lose a C9 or Gambit gaming or somebody like that.

     

    The reason I'm glad SK is gone is because now SK's very capable players can go to a better org and play on better teams. Sven and freddy, for instance, should have no problem finding capable teams to go to.

  8. Posted

    I think it's really important to remember that the LPL regional finals were played on 5.16, a new patch that literally no other competitive regions have played on. Thus, you saw things like super-broken pre-hotfix Skarner, Gangplank, etc. dominating those games.

     

    Also, Riot has explicitly stated that they do not plan to remove third party tournaments in China: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/3k4omm/riot_games_in_talks_to_assume_control_of_lol/cuuwoil

     

    "This isn't about getting rid of some of the aspects that make the LPL unique as a league. The local team will be the judge of what local esports fans want (e.g. cosplay opening ceremonies).

     

    This isn't about killing third party tournaments in China - Demacia cup is coming back in 2016."

     

    I agree that Riot's competitive bans for some players and other people (Forgiven, Chris Badawi) has been pretty bad and I do think that they have a lot to learn.

     

    I don't think that there's anything wrong with SK being relegated - they have had a really bad internal team atmosphere for a long time and have made some abysmal personnel decisions.

  9. Posted

    Do many people here play both Lol and DOTA2? I play more Lol for the simple reasons that it has shorter waiting times and I am used to playing it solo where DOTA2  is more a game I play with friends.

     

    I play both. If I'm short on time - which seems to be often lately - I also choose LoL because it takes 30 seconds to get into a normal game instead of 5 minutes. But a ranked game of LoL takes just as long to get into as a game of DOTA, it seems.

  10. Posted

    That's true, haven't seen a LoL pro match since winter.  It's cool that people are doing some different stuff lately.

     

    What sorts of things are you seeing?  I know in Korea there were always some different ideas - is it spilling over into other regions?

     

    In Dota you can see 1,2, or 3 champs in any particular lane, may or may not have a dedicated jungler, it's got a lot of variety from the little I've seen.  You have the typical one hard carry "4 protect 1" or tri-core (3 semi carries), etc.

     

    LoL used to be incredibly stagnant, just a long drawn out game of farm and protect the carry. But it's changed a lot. And your intuition is correct about Korea - a lot of the innovation has come from there. Even though there are still "roles" in the way there used to be, they have changed a lot. Mid and top don't really exist anymore - rather, you have two solo lanes, and they can be mid or top or bottom. The other big change is that, even though there is still always a jungler, most of the time there is a 2 v 1 lane swap with the ADC and support facing up against a solo laner. Then the jungler often joins the 2 v 1 lane to make it 3 v 1 (or 3 v 2 with the other jungler's help) for fast tower pushes and objective (dragon early game, Nashor late game) control.

     

    There are lots of interesting wrinkles in the meta right now - fast push, poke comps, the Chinese steamtrain comp, lane freeze comps, etc. It's really very interesting. League has progressed a lot competitively as a game. I think League could be a bit boring in season 2, when games lasted at least 50 minutes and it was always a rush to end game teamfighting. It's much more interesting now, I think.

  11. Posted

    I don't know if things have been solved but certain things in League are fixed that are not in Dota.

     

    For example in League, it's just accepted that teams go with 1 top, 1 mid, 2 bot, and occasionally go 2 top.  Compare to Dota where you have every possible combination including 'trilanes' seen even now in Pro matches.

     

    Honestly, I don't think anyone who has watched pro LoL in the last few months would say this. It's completely not true.

     

    However, I actually think Riot *wants* to move League in the direction you're presenting. While it's not true right now, unfortunately by next season I think it might be.

  12. Posted

    I disagree with the idea that League has been "solved" by the competitive scene. Things are really in flux competitively right now, maybe a bit more so than DOTA. The meta in DOTA has been a lot more stable, I think, especially from watching TI3. I think a lot of this is because League's meta is comparatively younger than DOTA, and also because the Korean scene is so innovative and DOTA doesn't have that yet.

     

    Edit: It cracks me up how hard everyone is trying not to insult League/DOTA fans. Like watching ninjas tip-toe over a floor strewn with bells.

  13. Posted

    The thing about the Saint's Row games (particularly 3, and hopefully 4) is that their story and gameplay perfectly mesh, in exactly the way that GTA's never do. Saint's Row has every bit as many weird activities and bizarre results of playing around in the open world, but rather than try to tell an unrelated story of renouncing violence that flies in the face of the gameplay, it tells a story about runaway celebrity and fame, and the excesses and distractions that come from them.

    Even more importantly, Saint's Row is entirely aware of how much of a self-parody it is, and it owns every moment of it - often while sneaking in subtle humor between the big, blatant dildo-jokes.

    If you're even slightly interested, I recommend giving Saint's Row 3 a chance (especially if you pick it up through the Humble Deep Silver Bundle). If you don't get a kick out of a tutorial mission where you help a movie star prepare to star as you in your own bio-pic by taking him on a bank robbery where you hide your identity by wearing Mardi Gras masks of your own faces, then I suppose the series just isn't for you.

     

    I couldn't agree more. Saints Row (basically since the second one) is smart and funny in a way that GTA has never been (at least not since San Andreas, and even that game has a cringe-inducing story line that's only saved by its myriad nods to the actual open-world insanity of the game).

  15. Posted

    Chris: Have you read any Graham Greene? I really, really recommend it as a counterpoint to Le Carre (the two are by far my favorite authors in that "genre", although I think they both escape the genre at times).

     

    The Human Factor is a great place to start - it's a book that's ostensibly about espionage but feels much more like a character piece. It helps if you know anything about Kim Philby.

     

    Also, I agree that Spy who came in from the cold is probably a better book than Tinker.

  16. Posted

    What are people's thoughts on the new champ.  ADC is my main role so I look forward to trying him out seems like he's got some cool mobility stuff which is always fun to use.

     

    I think he looks interesting. It's a very nice visual design. But without any CC, I don't see him making a big impact on the meta.

  17. Posted

    For those interested in competitive LoL, the NALCS starts today at 4:00 PM Eastern with a big slate of games, and goes all through the week. The schedule is up here: http://na.lolesports.com/

     

    Starts off with a bang, too - Team Coast (formerly GGU) versus TSM: ie, the #2 and #1 teams from last season. Watch to see how Coast does in this game, because they finally have their primary mid on their team again (Shiphtur). He couldn't play in the Spring split due to visa issues, but he's a step up from their previous mid player.

  20. Posted

    Agh. I want to play thresh and nami so bad.

     

    They're both really good. I don't play much support (and when I do play support I do awful things like Morgana/TF support), but Riot has been upping the ante with their support releases lately. They've all been excellent, interesting champs that make their way into the meta fairly quickly.

  21. Posted

    Is thresh played as a support? I'm out of the game since Around Vi and I miss it and thresh looks a bit like a leona for support.

     

    Yes. Thresh is awesome. He has a hook like Blitz, and he's designed to get better over time without farm.

     

    Check out some ridiculous Thresh play from MadLife: 

     

     

  23. Posted

    How OP IS Jayce right now?

     

     

    I just grabbed Wukong last night because I keep feeling what I need from top lane is a strong teamfight presence after the Rumble nerf.

     

    I think Jayce is pretty OP right now, at least competetively. If you look at the Korean meta, he is banned/picked every game. So maybe not more OP than Twisted Fate at this point, but right up there.

     

    I keep seeing junglers using Rumble now and I don't get it but whatever. However, that is awesome because it lets you make rumble in the jungle references and absolutely no one will know what you're talking about.

  24. Posted

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    Welcome to your very own Idle Thumbs League of Legends (Lords) thread! As League was being talked about a lot in the DOTATO threads (http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/forum/35-dota-today-episodes/) it made sense to get all that out of there and put it somewhere where it's a bit more appropriate. This thread to discuss anything you want related to LoL, including but not restricted to: general questions, help getting started, the competitive scene, Teemo and yordles, why Darius is a bad Axe remake, how OP Jayce is right now, and more. Hopefully this can also be a good place for you to get into some LoL games with other thumbs.

     

    yXp3XRG.png

    You can download the game right here (non-referral link): http://signup.leagueoflegends.com/en/signup/redownload

  25. Posted

    I don't want to restrict any convo but would we be better off just creating a LOMA BATTLE ROYALE thread where people can go to have these arguments and keep the episode threads about the actual episode? I know it came up on this ep (so, yeah, whatever) but it's not really an argument I'm very interested in and not what I want much of the show to be about. Thoughts?

    It would probably just be better to make a LoL thread in Video games so people can talk about LoL, which they obviously want to do.

    Edit: Also Axe (and Darius for my LoL peeps (he is basically Axe)) totally sucks and is a boring hero.