I've wanted a fencer type champ for a while now so Fiora is a day one buy. Helps that I fucking love the art. Unfortunately she's melee dps so I'm automatically forced to play solo top where I'll be fighting nothing but Garen, Nautilus and Shen.

Plus I don't think she'll be very good. Same deal as Master Yi, who is borderline overpowered if you look at stats and skills and can shred teams 1v5 if he gets fed enough, but he just doesn't fit into a lane so nobody plays him.

 

Most folks like to try and play a Carry of some sort. Be it AP or AD. What a lot of new players don't realize is that Carry is the most complicated and difficult role in the game.

It's also a clutch position moreso than just about any other. Except perhaps tanks.

A bad carry vs a team of even moderately skilled opponents means you WILL. NOT. WIN. Fucking up as the carry means you're probably going to lose the teamfight. Not farming as the carry means you're going to have issues putting out the damage you need to. Not knowing lots (all) of other champions and their capabilities + counters means you're going to get blindsided by something and lose.

Not knowing teamwork means you're going to get destroyed by their teamwork.


Tanks, however, are a bit easier, and are more forgiving, since it's basically your job to run in there and get your ass focused (at beginning levels of experience as a tank, that is). And it allows you to learn a lot about all the other champions pretty damn quickly.

If you want a tank who is still fairly Carry-ish, consider Nasus, as 30 minutes in with good farm he can utterly destroy another team, while still being tanky as hell.

 

The problem with carries is that in addition to needing to have a good grasp of the mechanics of the game to utilize the role properly, you also are incredibly dependent on your team. If there is an olaf barrelling towards you at the speed of rage, you are NOT going to get away and unless you have a full build, you will not survive it.

Carries are dependent on their team to protect them, cc for them, and save them from the bruisers. The problem in most games I play isn't that the carry doesn't carry, but that the team doesn't protect the carry.

But speaking of carries, I just played a tristana game that was pretty amazing. We expected galio top and twitch/soraka bot but ended up getting a 3 man gank bot at level 1. I lived through it and these fuckers stayed there and tried to take the turret early. It ended up going against them because Olaf (their jungler) had to cover top while shaco got to run around taking all the good xp from his jungle.

With a shaco gank I get 1 kill and 2 assists, and then Galio goes top. We were left with a half HP tower, a large gold advantage, and a level or two exp advantage. I was just able to snowball too well and actually cancelled Malzahar's ult two of the three times he hit me by ulting him at the same time. Doing some crazy shenanigans to carry hard because my team was getting pretty beat up, this was the most fun I've had in a game in a long time.

At one point, Malz had 15% HP sitting in the blue buff brush with soraka and Galio. They knew I was coming, but they didn't know they were sitting on a ward. I jumped on Malz, explosive shot and rocket shot and then cleansed galio's ult and hopped back over the wall.

Game ended with me at 17-1-6. I got a penta kill and later a delayed-penta quadra kill where I killed Galio first, but olaf took too long to kill making Galio's death not count for the spree.

The best part is that they talked some trash early, then I got to stomp them hard.
http://i.imgur.com/oPjlH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jrX0s.jpg

As you can see, the rest of the team was less than useful. Janna was pretty good about shielding me and decent support in general, but Morg would save her shield for herself and my 1 death was due to the fact (Malz ult hurts), Singed had a backdoor fetish he couldn't get over and 0 capability for initiating, and shaco was pretty useless except for KSing. After leaving the laning phase he was good for nothing at all. The second penta (delayed) was actually me killing the entire team, the turret, and the inhib in about the time it took Shaco and Singed to backdoor top. Morg went in and ulted, and I tore them down while they tried to run.

 

Alright, so, last night me and a good friend of mine decided to play League. He played Mundo, I played Cait, we both went bottom. Commence epic shitstorm of awesomeness from me, in which I went 7 and 0 against Pantheon and Amumu. So far, so good.

Xin Zhao is jungling. Except he sucks at jungling, and sucks at Xin Zhao, and sucks at life in general, apparently. Every single time he died, he blamed me. Every single time I got a kill, he claimed KS. Every single time I died, he said it was because I was too far ahead of the rest of the team.

Anyway. We started off doing awesome, as I just said, but Xin Zhao, Malzahar, and Gangplank somehow managed to lose us the game. I don't understand how it happened, all I know is it did.

By the way, at the end of the game I was something like 16 and 9.

 

I assume that while you had 16 kills, your team didn't have more than 30.
Unless you are playing poppy/trynd/olaf/irelia/singed, you won't be able to 1v5 a team that isn't already roflstomped.

Even if you were 7-0 bot, those kills were probably worth around 100g or less by then and if the other lanes are doing well and have better farm than you, then you aren't even going to be ahead, much less so far ahead that you can carry a fail team.

 

Actually we had about 33 kills when the game ended.

And yeah, Caitlyn isn't one of those ridiculously overpowered characters that can solo Baron, although according to a game I had she can do it with a support champ alongside her.

As far as your general assessment of the game goes, that's about what happened, to be honest. It's just... that Xin Zhao.

 

I've solo'd Baron as Caitlyn... Just need a second Bloodthirster in the build(not something I normally get two of), and enough attack speed. I think that at the time I was using two Bloodthirsters, an Infinity Edge, two Phantom Dancers... and a Madred's Bloodrazor?

 

OP Build is OP.

I'm going to go with the assumption that you picked up a dagger + pots for your berserker's greaves, but then got fed by the other team to the point where it was more efficient to simply pick up a Zeal instead.

Also, I'm curious, is dagger + pots any good? I usually start boots + pots, but that extra attack speed might be nice.

 

Eh... I usually get Berserker's and replace them with another Phantom eventually as a last item-swap. That said, I just generally start with the Doran's Blade when I play Caitlyn.

I try to get enough gold for Boots and a BF Sword when I first recall, and maybe a Vampiric Scepter too, but sometimes I get an early Zeal. It all depends really, I suppose. Either way, I usually finish the Infinity Edge and a Zeal before getting the Bloodthirster, as the Vampiric Scepter(+Doran's+Mastery) will generally hold me through until then. The finished Phantom Dancer comes after, then whatever I need for my last two slots. Upgraded boots fit into there somewhere.

Normally, I just get Berserker's Greaves(often replaced at the end with PD), Infinity Edge, Bloodthirster, Phantom Dancer; and the last two slots vary between Bloodthirster, Black Cleaver, Madred's Bloodrazor, Frozen Mallet, Banshee's Veil, Guardian Angel and the rare Quicksilver Sash.
I have got a Last Whisper a couple of times, but it's only really better than a Black Cleaver if a majority of their team has over roughly 150 armor, due to the Black Cleaver having greater damage and an attack speed bonus, combined with the innate armor penetration from Masteries and Runes.

Well, that's what I do, but I'm sure that someone here would suggest something different.

 

As a starting item, you should go with either dorans blade or boots. Dorans gives you negligible sustain, but HP to dish out more in trades and damage to make last hitting easier. If you do not have a support who has sustain, then you go boots 3 pots and play a bit more defensively unless you are in a kill lane.

As for builds, I always go IE first because without a team that concentrates on keeping you alive, you aren't going to keep the 40 stacks on bloodthirster very often or very long. My first buy is always to complete zerker greaves+double dorans. Once I have that I can last hit ranged minions at tower without two shots and have enough hp+dmg to deal some decent damage as well. Then its IE into zeal into PD. Then a vamp scepter, then either a bloodthirster or a last whisper, depending on how tanky their team is. You do need to put a LW in your build if they have any type of bruiser jungler/top lane. You don't need a black cleaver to deal with ranged AD, support, or AP, but you do need a LW to deal with tanks.

By that point the game is usually over, but a full build for me would've been zerkers/pd/bt/ie/lw/ last slot for defensive item. QSS if they have a supression fucker or too many ignites/exhausts or cc in general, Banshees veil if they just have strong AP carries, and GA if their bruisers are the problem.

 

So I've been messing around in Dominion almost constantly since SR got boring a long time ago.

Somehow, I'm in the top .3% for Dom Elo ratings out of 144k+ players for the NA servers.

/e-peen


Anyways, some general guidelines for Dominion:

Ghost + Flash together on one champion is largely useless. Summoners are your trump card skills in Dom. These two together don't have the same level of effect as Exhaust + Ghost/Flash.

Cleanse + Long Range = Bad idea. If you're playing Lux, Xerath, or something with 800+ range, cleanse won't be helping you much once someone gets in your face. You're better off with ignite to kill them faster or Exhaust to survive long enough to kill them.

There are no Zero CS builds in Dom. No one spams gold/5s or runs the standard pure support builds. If you're going top as a support, you focus on CDR for disruption and then damage/defense items, preferably AP ones such as Rylai's and Zhonya's. If you're going bot, then you get sustain and defense to prevent caps, such as Glacial Shroud and SV. There is no zero CS.

Middle cap is based on top fight. The one capping your middle should always be your least influential ally if he was present at top. People like GP and WW, who don't really contribute much to an early 3v3, should be capping mid then running up to provide further aid. High-value champs, such as Alistar and Blitz, shouldn't be trying to cap mid since they can drastically alter fights. Slow champs, such as no-boots Kass, shouldn't even be trying mid because the enemy will crush their allies quickly and painfully fast.

 

I love Lux.

She's my best champion. And nothing in this game makes me happier than destroying a team with characters like Riven, Trynd, Shaco, Morgana and Fizz.... with my squishy little blonde girl.

That is all.

Go into the liiight.

 

Fiora: First champion that can apply BCleaver in AOE.

Also possibly one of the few I'd even consider getting a sanguine blade on.

 

AoE B Cleaver what? 0.o

 

Blade Waltz applies on hit effects. Frozen Mallet, Black Cleaver, red buff... it'll make Tiamat stacking in bot games kind of funny.

 

I want to see Fiora ult someone as they teleport.
Make it happen.

 

That's the exact same thing I thought the moment I heard about it. First and last target are the same? Okay!

As for the Tiamat, I can almost see it being a completely normal build item, as if even two champions are next to each other in a fight, it greatly amplifies the damage that your ult will do. If you can catch most of the enemy team via Galio taunt, Kennen/Morgana/Amumu/Sona/Cassiopea/etc. stun... then it would utterly slam their team to have even just one Tiamat when using Fiora's ult.

It's too bad that I don't get to try her out until I get home in around four and a half hours.

 

So, I just had a game where we basically shit all over the other team and destroyed their Nexus at about 17:30. All I can really say is... um... How did these people get to level 26 or higher without quitting the game?

 

See, this is why losses, customs, and co-op shouldn't award exp. Keep the people who can't play at the level they should be at.

Also: Fiora = Awesome

Been playing her all day and I've only lost twice, once in Dominion due to an AFK at 5 minutes and another in SR because a mid Ahri fed Veigar hard enough to let him get DFG at 8 minutes.

Otherwise, perfect record destroying people with her.

Some advice for Fiora:

1) You do not need Atk spd on her. Her E + Ghost Blade/PD/TForce (Mainly for Crit + Other stuff) lets her basically hit 2.3+ already. Don't get Zerker greaves.

2) AD is your freaking friend. Get it fast.

3) Don't fight Jax, WW, or Trynd solo. Only ones that have guaranteed 100% kills against you.

 

Remember all those games where your team is fucking retarded, feeding every lane and doing their best to lose the game no matter how hard you try and carry? You just met five of them at once.