This. Hydra for consistent damage and tons of waveclear, sightstone so you can fly around everywhere with ward jumps, everything else is conditional. Hydra on top of his kit makes him a good split pusher but his presence in teamfights is insane because of his mobility. To carry, build Hydra, Last Whisper and 4 Bloodthirsters so that your Q-R-Q combo does stupid damage.

 

NA LCS Playoff spoilers!

Spoiler

Those CLG chokes, 4-0 against TSM and then boom, total reversal. Nien the only one who performed well which is to be expected - Dlift is all talk bar maybe one play a month, average. Still think TSM are going to Worlds with the 3rd place seed though, that said have to see how Dig/Crs perform next.

TLDR; Classic CLG, forget objectives exist, farm farm farm, get caught out/screw up initiation.

Edit; Not to take-away from TSM's performances at varying points in the game, stepping up when it was needed to at the very least, ensure their place in S4 spring split.

Edit;

Faker is just disgusting, some of those plays and especially in that last game of the OGN finals today, just, gotta be watched when they appear - I fear for anyone else in the mid lane if SkTT1 get to Worlds.

 

That TSM turn around though. Commentators have a hard on about TSM fans (Who, to be fair, I think could pass for soccer/football fans at some points) but the history doesn't lie. TSM wins a lot more LAN events than they do online tournaments.

We'll see how they do for their fourth game but if they do to vulcan what they did to CLG i'l be VERY surprised, even as a TSM fan, because they really couldn't get their act together earlier in the year.

P.s. Dyrus stop buiding rylai on Rumble first. The % of additional slow you get is complete shit, since out of your damage abilities, 2 of them already slow (so the % is increased multiplicatively) and are aoe (so you're only getting *.15 anyway). Build the fucking liandri first, especially since you are fighting against a fucking 3k health nasus. It did keep him alive a few times, but if he had a giant's belt he would have lived in those times also so I still think rushing the liandri is much stronger, especially vs tanks.

 

Rylai's first on Rumble is huge as if you miss your E/it's on CD, you keep people well within range. Nasus' isn't a problem in a TF as TSM can kite him to hell and back with their CC/slows/mobility - Utility over damage when you have Regi & Turtle I feel. Rumble's forming part of the front line and it never hurts to have more health. It isn't as effective because Rumble is a very heavy AoE champion but I feel like it was the right call as every little helps in stopping Nasus get to your back line.

Guess we both eat our words, Vulcun had a great comeback in Game 2 but that Rumble ult at Baron and Vulcun just standing on it, stacked, against Caitlyn/Rumble... Just ouch Vulcun.

To be fair, the NA scene competition has never looked too strong when TSM were dominating in S2, I think the competition in the LCS has really forced TSM to up their game even further, and I think they'll be an actual threat at Worlds this year.

 

No NA team is going to be a threat at worlds, except for maybe Cloud 9.

 

Eh, it depends who shows up on the day. Sktt1 were 0-2 in their group in this summer's OGN and now look at them. Yes, it's a whole different style of play and a whole different level mechanically but I think anyone can compete with Korea. It all depends on a teams mindset and how they do in the early game.

I still say look at TPA in S2. They were average at best and nobody thought they'd make it out of groups, then they stomp everyone. Look at Azubu now - Even with Flame and 'Godlife' both teams got beaten down. The scene's constantly evolving and anything could happen.

Hell, NA beat EU at Worlds when a majority of the fanbase, myself included figured NA were the weakest scene. Still have money on the S3 World Champion being Korean, but we'll see.

 

Difference between liandri+ gblet vs rylai and haunting guise is about 120 health. The damage difference though is positively massive, (~3.3% current health damage per second). Hard to say definitively of course, but I still feel it's a much more impactful (.35*.15=.0525, means the total difference in slow between just the E or R hitting you with rylais is 40.25% slow) or 10% current health over 3 seconds.

Hell you even get the liandri+giants belt combo quicker (3900 vs 4385 gold). In a general sense i'll trade 10% current health damage over 3 seconds and 120 health less for .05% slow on my slowing abilities and 120 additional health and some AP i'm too lazy to calculate. To put that into perspective, you're saying that a 5% slow and 120 health -plus whatever the ap difference is- is worth 300 damage on the full health Nasus.

 

And Rylai's is flat out better if he catches someone out as they're slowed as opposed to taking extra damage, Rylai's enabled him to catch people out alongside his ult, but TSM clearly wanted to TF whenever they could as they figured they were still stronger and it worked out.

Still feel like he went for the Rylai's because he figured he'd be tanking damage (which he was) whilst Regi dealt with the backline. Just felt like Rylai's fit in better with their 'catch someone and kill them' comp with Oddone providing the disruption/CC and allowing Rumble ult to be fully utilised.

Either way they won the teamfights handily when they engaged correctly and weren't caught out and well, he's the one being paid to play this game at a professional level, not me - I'm sure he has his own reasons for the Rylai's first.

Edit; Dig fans got their hopes up after that start... C9 are known to be weak early, they nearly always give up FB, usually on Lemon. Soon as the mid game, leading into early late-game transition started, they exploded out the gates. Dig still have their chance in this game but C9 are rapidly closing the door on them.

 

Got any proof for that? That's not an "I think this is better because this strength over this strength" statement; that's an absolute declaration of superiority. Good luck proving that though, as Rumble's catching power is all in his E and R (his E slow stacks on itself, going up to a 70% slow) and not a 15% slow on his Q.

Dig isn't really on the same level of individual skill as C9, I don't think. In that game Dig made a lot of individual play mistakes (Patoy being too far to peel for his ADC a bunch of times, the commentator even outright said 'fiddle is just choosing not to ult here', that kind of things) which helped them lose their advantage and eventually lose.

 

Because his Q applies the Rylai's slow whereas you can miss your E but you can't miss your Q unless they walk out of the range? I can't be bothered arguing this anymore as Dyrus did it & TSM won and Nasus was never an issue so, what happened happened and it worked, it's apples & oranges at this point.

Still feel like Fiddle is just an inferior Zyra, I've never seen him played well bar one game this entire season in the OGN - he can't ult in a TF because it's a 2 second channel and even if he does, he's a support, it'll do jack all damage and Patoy knew better than to waste 2 seconds channelling only to get blown up anyway, Dig were screwed as soon as TF's hit because C9's TF accuracy and calls are impeccable.

 

Elise: totally balanced. Build full tank and dive a Jarvan and fiiddle under their own tower.

 

Two level advantage over both of them will do that, 1600g in stats alone or there abouts and that's prior to skill damage. God knows where Meteos gets this farm from, I know it's lane tax but from who? Has to be Hai at this point and even then, the lanes are pretty even.

Something I wish I could emulate.

Edit; Feel like Ez would've been better for Dig here, there's a lot of CC/catching capability for C9. Not blue Ez either, but bog standard straight up damage Ez.

 

It definitely has nothing to do with Elise's level 3 base damage combo of 280 base damage plus 8% current health then 8% missing health. I'll get spider bitch for free and maybe i'll use her for some freelo in s4.

Vlad this game makes me wish I liked the vampirism theme at all. Grinding enemies down and split pushing is exactly what I like to do, but Vlad's theme is pretty abhorrent to me. In this game though I would have went WOTA, since it's only 800 more and most of the team can use it.

Hai "I played Fizz like, 20 times in solo queue" -> Way better Fizz than some people whp have played a hundred games.

Jarvan middle is so delicious. Oh god the hydra, the hydra! I literally played a game where I quadrakilled with it. He just evaporates squishies too.

 

Thanks for the advice on Lee Sin guys.

I tried out the Hydra and the 4 BT build... It really didn't work out for me lol. My playing style is probably too weird for it to work like normal.

So Imma stick to my build atm. It seems to serve as a good general purpose build. I tend to win 3 out of 4 matches with it. So, meh.

Also, What happened to that DLP tourny we were talking about?

*Looks at Jon*

 

Hydra 4 BT's only works if your team's actually crushing and even then it's a gimmick build. Hydra - LW is more than enough damage before you need to get at least 1 tank item I feel. Something like a Randuins would be perfect, or an SV against double AP because hey, CDR and bonus healing even if Lee doesn't scale amazingly off CDR.

After that builds always seem up in the air, can't think of a champion I'd have a set build on outside a standard rotation of top laners and some supports, though not playing two of the most adaptable roles in mid/ADC probably explains a lot of that.

 

It's kinda of funny how the commentators keep saying "TSM going all in on the damage" and then seeing everyone on the team build the utility items (ROA/Mana for instance) and so few people die to TSM in the game. In the first game there were multiple 5 man shockwaves from Reginald (who went Athene's), obviously Karthus hits everyone (except lolelise, totally balanced), 5 man crescendos, etc. Meanwhile for C9 everyone is building 'tanky' and totally melting turtle.

Honestly in these games i'd be banning Zyra over Ashe. The area control from the ult and the snare/slows are really hurting TSM more so than the Ashe initiation.

 

It's kind of funny how people seem to think TSM has a chance agains C9.

 

C9 uses separation tactics and mass CC, it's super effective! TSM fainted.

Honestly TSM picking lane Karthus didn't work this time around because you can tell C9 just immediately decided to pick on him till he was far enough behind so they could switch onto Turtle as what's Zed gonna do against that much CC? Twitch is still semi-scary with his ult.

C9 are just on another level in NA currently, and I think they'd hand Europe's ass to them as well, honestly can't see Fnatic's split-push till the enemy die of boredom strat working either.

Edit; God damn Meteos just have my jungle babies, how do you even do this.

And that's NA guaranteed top 8 as they have been since All Stars, expecting C9 to make RO4 minimum as they'll have plenty of time to analyse who their most likely opponents are and prepare, Korean or otherwise.

 

To be fair, Trooper... I don't think anyone actually recommended you to commit to Hydra + 4 Bloodthirsters.

 

That's just silly, obviously the best buid is NASUS with hydra+4 bt for the pentakill Qs. Walk into camps and decimate them in one Q. Walk into enemy teams and Q -> pentakill. Q tower -> all towers fall over, etc.