That's the point of the three Doran's items. They're strong, gold-efficient early game items that give you a boost in lane. The tradeoff is that they can't be upgraded, which sets back your first big item for midgame.

Saying that it's a waste of gold is one way of looking at it, but it's also pretty short sighted. The extra 60 health from a Doran's Ring can turn the last tick of Ignite killing you for first blood into you escaping with a sliver of health.

 

I really wish they'd disable duo-queueing if you're a certain number of divisions or tiers apart because this is just getting retarded lately. Every game I'm duoing against something like a Silver V and a Plat III and it sucks donkey balls because they then get a couple of like Gold II's to boot so we're already massively out-skilled, regardless of whether the Plat III has an MMR worthy of Plat III or not, and it just makes playing such a hassle because you know you'e screwed.

I mean, last game I had 2 Silver I's, myself and 2 other Gold V's vs a Plat III, a Silver V, 2 Gold II's and a Gold III. How in the fuck is that fair? My MMR's taken huge hits due to this losing streak lately and it's just starting to get annoying, and it's down to people duo queueing because they can't advance on their own. I guess we have a technical advantage due to them having a low silver but it doesn't change the fact that we're still getting screwed -thanks- to duoing.

Small rant about duo-q but it's just something that's been on my mind lately given how many duo-q's start appearing once you hit Gold, if we got one too that'd be fair, but lately it's 5 singletons vs at least 1 duo, and it makes it increasingly difficult as is.

Yup... Another duo-q this game on the enemy team. We get 3x Silver I, they get 2x Gold III. Damn you, MMR. Still, it's a good system, much as I like to personally hate on it, just... Not been kind lately.

 

New Udyr skin is sexy as fuck. Makes me wish I played him, but not enough to actually learn him (I don't think).

 

It does indeed look amazing. I'm pretty sure I agree with you on all points. But he has seriously needed a new skin, it's been forever since he had a skin released. But be prepared for a huge influx of Udyr players. Some will be good (the enemy team) and some will be bad (your team).

 

Yeah, duos across tiers annoy me to fuck. The one time I'm second pick and I take something other than support or top, a low plat MF boosting his silver 4 queue partner completely wrecks me as Caitlyn while my AP Lux support remains a passive, useless tit all game who only finishes sightstone 30 minutes in but keeps dying with 4 charges left. Was behind by 40 cs at ~12 minutes because my mechanics are ass but that game was just embarrassing.

 

Duo-Q can be great, it can be terrible, I just dislike when they get a duo and we don't, or vice versa, it's just unfair, doubly so across tiers. I don't mind if it's like a Gold I with a Gold V, but Plat players... Please no.

That new Udyr skin... Not sure. Love the max rank skill models and effects, the base model... Not so much, though it doesn't look complete on the PBE previews. Been meaning to play Udyr but it's difficult to jungle when you consistently get 4th/5th pick. That and Udyr's enemy is kiting and gap closers used to escape, something a lot of champions have lately.

Would love to get the skin, though nearly 2k RP on release... Is a lot, for a champion that see's so little action. Also worries me as a support jungler, given Udyr's ridiculous dueling capability.

 

Even Gold I to Gold V is way too much of a skill difference to be duo queueing. It should really be restricted to between 1 or 2 divisions.

 

Byeeeeeeeee!... aren't you going to be playing with like a population of 4 people?

(Cameron can you check your voice mail pleeease I want food)

 

Yeah, the placement matches should get harder and harder until your mmr gets to wherever it should be. I think you need to win all 10 placement matches to get into gold, and 5 or 6 to get into silver.

 

Any DLPers heading to oceanic add me ingame on kempodude will probably organise some custom games with other oceanic region people over the weekend if anyones keen.

 

So I got the green "Great Teammate" honor crest a couple of days ago. Yay. Unfortunately pretty much every game I've played since then has been a one-sided stomp with at least one rager. When one team has a Diamond dude effortlessly destroying everyone and the other team has someone who doesn't know the difference between AD and AP... I dunno. It kinda ruins the fun for both teams.

I can only assume it's intentional, because this is the longest streak of terrible games I've had in a long time.

Eh, not quite. Placement uses the same MMR system as ranked, just accelerated. That means it doesn't really matter how many games you win, it's all about who those games are against. One guy might win all 10 games but be playing against teams in low Silver. Another dude might only go 50/50 in placement matches, but if those games are against teams in high Gold / low Platinum then he's going to end up placed in a higher division.

 

For your first 5ish? Yeah. I had a 7ish win streak on my placement before I started hitting trouble.

 

Yeah, I've pretty much destroyed my MMR with the last few games. Eh. Season ends in August, right?

 

Play a ranged yourself or get heavy sustain.

The best anti-harass champs for those situations are pesky range annoyances is Tryndamere and Ryze.

Tryndamere just no-sales them all day with some vamp scepters and free farms. Ryze hits harass with his own harass while getting stupidly tanky.

Otherwise, there's not much you can do unless you go all-in on them early. The counter to poke is burst/sustain. Pick your flavor and suffer through it.

 

Easiest way to win any match up is to just manipulate the creep wave so you can do whatever you want. If you're stronger than the other person you stand in their wave so that they have to go through you to get gold. If you need to town for a ward so that you can play aggro you push super hard before the cannon wave so it takes longer for the wave to counter push to your tower. If they freeze you go gank another lane, farm jungle, or go push a different lane. If their jungler shows bot and you're stronger you go proxy so their mid comes top and yours goes bot. So on and so forth.

 

Potentially pick a strong all-in champ like Riven, Renekton or Tryn? Riven really stomps most laners around level 3, though level 2 also works if you hit it first and have a red pot - though you can also be naturally punished for this.

A new trick I've seen lately is for Tryndamere's to start with a long sowrd & a few pots, take e at level 1 & just straight e into the opposing laner and auto them, though they'd work on clearing the caster minions ASAP.

Either way, lots of cheese sort of.

Ideally the best options have already been covered - either pick and learn a ranged champion of your own (Kennen is currently the king of harassment, though Jayce can also pick and choose his fights) or plenty of sustain and helping your jungler pick the right moment.

Actually saw a Swain top today, won rather handily against a Vlad which I found rather interesting, I couldn't watch it too much as bot lane was fairly scrappy all game but they were trading back and forth fairly regularly too.

Edit; Scarra picked Yi against TSM, hot damn. This should be good as I missed Alex playing Yi in the EU LCS.