I can't believe I have to say this-

But I was just carried by Lungs in a normal game.

 

I had teleport.

 

I haven't played League in ages, but watching Doublelift on TSM was just strange. CLG vs TSM was a great game though.

 

tfw CLG

 

That feeling when G2 Trick locks Udyr in an EU LCS game.

 

Starter Bundle free on Amazon. Only for NA. Includes 8 champions, an IP and XP boost.

Edit: Approved by Palindrome.

 

how's the newest champ looking?

 

Nearly at 30, and my friends are urging me to play several games on a couple chosen characters in selected roles. Planning on top with Malphite and Ekko. ADC was messing me up.

 

He's a bit odd. I've only really played him to see how he functions firsthand, more or less. Only one of the games did not result in me getting horribly fed by the end(In one it was even a 1/5 start, ending in a 21/5 finish).

By the nature of his kit, with % total AD boost based on level and crit/aspd, he is much, much better as the game progresses than he is early on.

I don't think I will find myself making him a regular selection, but I know I'll be very glad whenever I get him during the occasional ARAM I play with certain friends.

 

Praise Jesus Shen does damage now. I'm actually really surprised that I don't see him played more since he's always been a semi-meta pick due to his ridiculous ulti.

 

Jhin kind of needs a good kite screen. Like, much more than any other AD. He's not going to be reliably soloing enemy tanks like other ADCs due to his reload and slow attack speed.

Combined with his longer animations o his skills as well as his highly immobile ulti, you can basically call it a day if someone bursts you in between skills and reloads.

If someone's actually covering for you though? Get it just right, and he's a monster.

 

i'd forgotten how much fun jungling with warwick was, i've mostly been picking yi recently, build him tanky enough with a hint of lifesteal and im pretty much healing myself faster than i can be hurt >D
who do you guys usually jungle with?

 

I've been really into Kha'Zix Jungle lately. The few small buffs have made him actually decent again, and I really like his gameplay pattern.

 

Sejuani jungle madness.
the tank that is both usefull and rapeshit

Other than her. I play velkoz mid of support. and Whenever I can't I use lux in his place.

 

RIP Dominion. ;_;

I occasionally enjoyed playing it with friends, so we've been playing it the last few days before it's gone. Since it's entirely a mess around mode for us, I decided to try out my secret love:

THE GEMS


The Math
For those not in the know, Taric scales absurdly well with cooldown reduction. How absurdly? Theoretically, he can achieve over 85% CDR. This is achieved by fully utilizing his passive:

So the path to stuntown is clear. Get max CDR and auto after every spell. Enjoy having a point and click 90% uptime stun.


The Reality
In a real game, this isn't actually possible. For one, it requires almost max attack speed on top of max CDR, and for another, it requires you to sit through Taric's awful spell animations. That does not mean it isn't ridiculous though. Even without any attack speed items, you're looking at about one attack per second, which means that if someone tries to actually fight you (they shouldn't) you'll be stunning them once every 3 seconds for 1.6 seconds.

That's all well and good, you say, but people are just going to walk away, right? You do no damage. I'm glad you asked.


The Damage
Taric builds full tank, but that doesn't mean he can't wreck you all thanks to a ridiculous amount of free damage from his kit. Seeing as Taric operates entirely around autoing people, the best way to quantify his damage is by calculating his spells as on hit damage. The end result is him dealing about 500 damage per auto (on top of some insane healing over time.)

Spoiler

117 Base AD
146/2 Iceborn Gauntlet proc
70 AD from Ultimate
300/5 Magic damage from passive
260/3 Magic damage from W
300/3 Magic damage from E

(117 + 146/2 + 70 + 300/5 + 260/3 + 300/3) = 506 damage per auto.

That's a surprising amount of damage. Still, how is Taric actually going to catch anyone? He's so slow! Right?

Wrong.


The Chase
Taric, like almost every tank, generally builds Deadman's Plate. Combined with Swiftness Boots + Alacrity enchant, you should be able to run down almost any target.

Okay, but what's to stop them from slowing you somehow after you've caught them? Taric has no gap closer and shouldn't be able to stick to the target after his first stun, which he needs to gap close. Well, Season 6 has brought us new and innovative ways in which to bring Gems to the masses.

Taric needs the Intelligence mastery, which means he is forced to take 18 points in the Cunning tree. The obvious choice is Thunderlord's, which adds damage and trade potential. Thing is, early game Taric either already trades well or can't get anywhere near his lane opponent, and late game the damage is insubstantial compared to his base damage.

Enter Stormraider's Surge, which is easy to proc on all but the tankiest of targets and allows you to stick to people like white on rice.


The Bad
Fiora. Fiora is The Bad. That true damage, combined with her mobility and Riposte make this a difficult skill matchup. Disengage when she ults or die.

Aside from that, there's a whole host of other problems. Your early game ranges from Somewhat Bad to Cannot Leave Turret Range. Your cooldowns are insanely long until you get some CDR, and you need enough tank stats to be able to actually duke it out with your lane opponent before you can utilize your passive. Lane opponents that deal primarily magic damage force you to build MR, which slows your acquisition of CDR items and thus Godhood. You're useless without mana and if your lane does not go well your team will immediately blame you for everything up to and including killing their dog.


The Gameplay
Alright, I've said a bunch of things and thrown a bunch of numbers around, but there's no real way to tell how good something is until you see it in game.

Taric 1v5
A very Serious Taric Montage
Random Taric Highlights
A Full Match


The Why
Why did I bother writing this massive tl;dr? Mostly due to inability to sleep, but also because Taric is slated for rework sometime soon, so I wanted to get my thoughts on him down before they ruin everything I love about him. Hopefully it also inspires someone to give him a whirl too.

 

Forgiven is forced to perform his mandatory military service soon. This means that he'll be out of the pro scene for about a year resulting more than likely in the end of his esports career.

His interview made me feel really bad for him. Regardless of your personal thoughts for the guy, you can't deny that he just never gets a break :/

Shit. No wonder his mind seemed to be elsewhere during the game. That's not exactly what you want to hear the morning of an LCS game.

 

There have been several threads on reddit with various ways for greeks (Forgiven) to dodge the draft. Who knows, maybe things will end up working out for him and H2K. I did hear that he considers it his duty to go and serve, so maybe he'll just bow out of professional scene as he said. It's difficult to imagine him coming back after a year of not playing at all. Shame, really. Might torpedo H2K's excellent Playoff chances too. Not sure how the possible replacement and loss of team cohesion will measure up against other top EU teams. Last game was pretty fun though, shame Giants couldn't hold it together for a bit longer.