Personally, my build for most AP casters is generally the same (I haven't tried out Kage's Lucky Pick, yet, for instance) but with a few deviations depending on enemy composition and what they're building for defense.

For instance, if they have a heavy AP caster (Veigar, Karth, etc. come to mind) I usually get an Abyssal Scepter as soon as possible, usually right after my rabadan's (I always go for early Rabadan's on casters, mostly because it helps with early burst and is an item that you can roll with all the way through the game).

If they're doing heavy physical damage or I'm just dying to jungle ganks, I end up getting a zhonya's hourglass somewhere in there.

Furthermore, if you're getting Kage's Lucky Pick that early, it should pay for itself at around the 45 minute mark, which is when I'd sell it and pick up something else (Voidstaff, Rylai's, Abyssal, Rabadan's, or Zhonya's, depending on what you're missing. I think you get the most bang for your buck out of those.)

Also never used DFG, is that any good?

 

I've heard some good things about League of Legends and decided to give it a try. I can be found as thebrute7 on PVPnet.

 

With a 765 gold cost, and 5per10 gain, it actually pays for itself in 25.5 minutes... 12.75 if you don't intend to actually build it into something and are just going to sell it later.

That said, I don't generally get Deathfire Grasp, and I also don't generally get a Kage's Lucky Pick on my AP Carries unless I'm being heavily denied farm for whatever reason. It mostly serves its place on my Tanky AP characters.

 

Well, it honestly depends on when you get it, though getting Kage's at 20 minutes is ridiculously late, so I'll accept that point.

Also, Lucky Pick could be useful on an AP Carry because you wouldn't have to farm as hard as the other guy would, and you're still farming at a reasonable amount if you're not stupid.

 

Kage's Lucky Pick isn't like Philosopher's Stone or Heart of Gold where the stats on it are useful enough to outweigh the cost of setting your core build back. You're going to be better off spending that 765g on a Negatron Cloak or Chain Vest, or farming another wave to buy a Blasting Rod if you're winning.

Deathfire Grasp itself is... odd. It's meant to be the caster equivalent of Madred's Bloodrazor, so it's a decent item if the enemy team is full of people stacking health without getting magic resist. It scales with AP, which gets hilarious late game when any Atmogs bruiser who wanders too close loses half their health from one spell and runs away.

The stats on it are the odd thing. The mana regen and cooldown reduction are great for champions like Lux, but the range on her spells is so long that she's rarely close enough to use the active. The active is great for assassins like Akali and Katarina, but neither one of them has mana. Karthus and LeBlanc can use it, but they're better off stacking straight AP. The only champion it really fits well on is Veigar. The stats help in lane for farming up Baleful Strike, the active allows his full combo to also murder people who aren't stacking AP and landing Event Horizon means he's always close enough to use the active.

 

Sorc boots is more damage than 15 ap, easily. Mp5 isn't necessary on Veigar if you run mregen seals/glyphs. And the 25 movement speed from boots 2 is going to save you more than 100 HP just by virtue of being able to reposition faster. You don't need to trade with other APs because you stun combo and run out of range before they can hit you.

And with DFG on veigar, you instagib someone 100% of the time, every time. If you don't, it isn't deathcap you need, it's voidstaff.

I get kage's to turn into DFG. I buy it first because it's a gp5 item and part of veigar's core DFG. Might as well get some free cash from it instead of not buying it until I can get a full DFG.

Veigar is a unique caster. DFG all the time, every time. It lets you instagib their ap, their ad, their support, and possibly their jungle as soon as you get it with your ult. Any other caster can just go with either 3 dorans-->rabadons or RoA-->rabadons. A few casters can go with an early zhonyas (kennen/morg/fiddle) but it isn't necessary. But I'm not talking about other casters getting kage's, I'm talking about Veigar.

That's kind of why I included it in my post on how to build veigar.

Veigar is a different playstyle than any of the other mages. Where most casters want to run AP runes to have extra burst in the fewest spells possible, Veigar wants manaregen because more spells also translates into more AP. Veigar doesn't need survivability like other mages because he has an AOE on demand stun. He doesn't need ignite to secure kills so you can run cleanse. Between cleanse and your event horizon, you have to put yourself way out of position to get killed. Eldee really covers why DFG is good on veigar. He makes use of all the stats, can put himself in position to use it easily, and of course makes better use of it than anyone else.

 

Well all of it is relatively situational to who you plan on targeting. For me I generally find the the targets I want to instagib have only around 40~ MR into team fights because generally they don't build MR right away and the damage it adds isn't the important part of dorans it's the 100 health you get, it's the same reason AD players get Doran's blade and it's definitely needed in a lot of match-ups. The worst match up being against Kass, but if anyone picks Veigar into Kass then they have to be pretty dumb.

Deathcap also adds more damage then voidstaff on <1XX~ MR (it was something like that can't remember the exact number, it's probably more tbh) targets which are your main targets in fight. In addition, DFG does an extra 7% damage once you complete Deathcap generally just cause of how Veigar works.

 

If you've finished your DFG and can't instagib a target, it is because you either suck at farming Q or they bought MR.

You don't need a deathcap to kill squishies on veigar.
Without a voidstaff, you don't deal damage to bruisers.
So you can build a deathcap to one-shot the squishies...um, harder?
I'll build the voidstaff so I don't have to wait for squishies to be out of position. That way I can just instagib the tank instead.

And movespeed will protect you more than 100 HP. There will rarely be a situation where 100HP saves you after your stun didn't. If you're that desperate for HP, build a cata into rod or bv, dorans isn't going to make veigars early-earlymid game as good as other casters, so you should build for late.

 

Or, if you honestly really are worried that much about dying, change up your runes. Put some armor or magic resist in there (though I don't know why you would on Veigar of all characters), or change up your masteries. Drop a few points from Utility and put them into defense to increase your HP or magic resist, if you can do that with like 4 points.

Also, Churchey's right. The mobility will save you alot more HP than Doran's gives you. I cannot tell you how easy it is to avoid a skillshot so long as you see it coming. Viktor's laser? Easy to dodge, unless you're a fucking moron. Veigar/Karth's bomb thing? Also easy to dodge. Lux's ult is dodgeable, though less-so than the others because 9 times out of 10 she's going to do it from the fog of war like a bitch so you won't hear her little charge-up scream thing.

 

Quick question. I'm pretty new to League, but I have seen a lot of mages using one or more Doran's Rings, particularly at the start.

Is it really such a useful item? I have been running Ryze generally, and Annie when I can't run Ryze.

With Ryze I usually start Sapphire Crystal -> Tear -> Boots of Speed.
But I have seen other's use Doran's, and while it seems pretty good, I don't understand why everyone seems to start with it.

 

Ryze is another unique mage who scales on mana instead of AP, so no it isn't useful on him.

But on most other casters yes, the dorans is useful because it lets you have amazing stats for the early game.
3 dorans costs you 1425, only 100g more than a catalyst, and it gives you 45AP, 300HP, and +5mp5. This is much better in the short term than the catalyst which gives 290HP/200mana and healing/mana on level.

However, once you finish the RoA, it's a much better value than the triple dorans. Dorans are a great item for an early boost to help your laning or a early-mid crutch to come back from a poor start. If your opponent goes Catalyst and you go triple dorans, your lane should be much stronger. If you don't take advantage of that though, your opponent came out ahead.

 

Ranked Lulz. Penta as Vlad(Me) + Wukong vs Nasus, Ahri, Graves, Shen, and Lee Sin.

Wukong and I were hauling our asses carrying a shitty Brand, Fiora and Udyr who were all 3-/7+/10+ by the end because we made them just follow me around. Ended up holding long enough for that one penta to turn the entire game around.

27/8/8 end on Vlad.

 

So, new champs out this week. The jury's still out on the majority of them, but I've already tried out Graves and I'm not a fan of him, so I tried out Ahri and LeBlanc.

Ahri... I like Ahri. She's fun, and her passive gives her amazing sustain. Almost enough to warrant not getting health pots with her boots on your first buy, but I'd still get at least one, just in case. Her abilities are all fun and that foxfire thing is fucking awesome after you hit someone with the pull from her E.

As far as LeBlanc goes... I'm not a fan. She's alright to play, but at the same time, it's sort of boring. W, E, run alongside them for a bit, Q and then R if they're still alive. Boom, fight's over. The same formula applies to every fight she gets in. Her W is interesting because of the teleport back part of it, which I suppose you could use to turret dive someone and then get the hell out of dodge, but I honestly never really encountered the need to do that unless one of my teammates couldn't finish a kill. I understand why Mejai's is so good on her, at least.

Speaking of, is Mejai's good on anybody besides LeBlanc? I understand that the biggest part of getting your money out of it is keeping your stacks high, but I'm also pretty curious about its viability on other AP champs like Ziggs or Viktor or... well, anyone. Pretty sure Karthus could benefit from it like a motherfucker because of his bullshit global ult and all.

 

Mejai's Soulstealer is worth the gold cost at 6 stacks. Below that it's a waste of gold, but if you can get more then it's one of the most gold efficient items in the game. Very risky though, especially since any good team will focus you down as soon as they see you buy it.

Twisted Fate, Karthus and Soraka can get all assists globally by pressing R, but that takes very good map awareness. Long range casters like Lux and Xerath tend to stay in the back and not die, letting them rack up stacks safely. AP assassins (Akali, Fizz, Katarina, Kassadin, LeBlanc) already snowball incredibly hard, give them a Mejai's and a few kills and their damage gets unmanageable very quickly.

Same deal goes with Sword of the Occult, you need 6 stacks to break even with the gold cost. You rarely see that item though, melee aren't safe enough and ranged carries are already focused. Sometimes see it on Talon and Urgot though.

Leviathan is terrible and you should never buy it. Warmog's Armor is better in every way.

 

Word of advice, if you aren't 2k+ Elo in Dom, don't bother going into Premades. You'll only get matched with people 400+ Elo higher than you and lose horribly.

 

I think there is some leeway on this. On the few occasions that I play Singed and I find that people are ignoring me in favor of our carries, then I buy the Leviathan. It's not so much for the buffs as it is to taunt the other team into focusing me in order to remove any potential stacking. There, not only do I benefit the team by soaking up most of the damage, but I also troll the fuck out of them when I switch on my R and just run around with my poison trail. By then, most of my team would have finished off the fight and I usually come off of it with half my health but with two or three stacks due to assist.

And from there, it starts snowballing. Of course I rarely, if ever, reach the full stacks but there's been plenty of times where ten stacks became easily manageable.

And speaking of Singed, what is DLP's opinion on his RoA vs Rylai's build? I've always been partial to RoA because I actually want the suckers to chase me and die to my poison but there have been so many people in the past bitching at me for not getting Rylai's instead.

 

Both?

It's honestly not too hard.

 

I go RoA as a mainstay with Rylai's as a situational. If your team can force them into a situation where they have to chase it can be useful. If you're doing a lot of chasing your W/E should be enough.

If they have some noobs that don't know chasing Singed is a Bad Idea I'd advise against it. The slow makes them think twice when the idea is to have them chasing as long as possible.

Overall you just have to look at it and figure if the potential slow is worth the trade off of potential chases.

 

Today for my trolling, I played Soraka Mid. I even bought flat MRes glyphs for her just to make sure I could troll enemy mids even better.

Heal + Flash, 9/21/0

Move Speed Quints, MPen Marks, Flat AR Seals,, Flat Mres Glyphs

Boots + 3 Pots start
Ionian Boots
Rylai's Rush
Pots + Wards as needed

R>Q>E>W, with the first W point usually at lvl 8+.

100% win rate for today vs Ahri x2, Malz, and Annie mids.

Silence + Auto tapping them from lvls 1-3 for light pokes then weaving E+Q for massive pain. Always guaranteed FB if no other lane got it yet.

If I can't dodge a skill with 387 staring move speed, then65 Mres lets me easily shrug off most harass.

I've gotten Soraka to the point where I can 1v3 the enemy top (Ahri), mid (Renekton), and jungle (Fiddle), and slaughter 2 of them before making my escape. In another game, I was dismantling Graves, Ahri, and WW solo and scoring a double before their entire team jumped me with all of their remaining CCs.

Soraka can evade most jungle ganks because of that E. Prevents many junglers from actually getting in range to stop you, unless they're auto-attack based like Shyvana and Udyr. For those, just ward up and back off since they can't dive you without dieing.

Rylai's rush lets you basically destroy any mid 1v1. The poke damage you can deal out compared to most enemy mids is ridiculously high. With Q maxed first, you'll pretty much always get better trades off in slightly prolonged fights. Rylai's slow lets you make those fights drag out even longer and put you in advantageous situations where the enemy has to run while you can keep attacking them without fear of return fire.

 

Fighting a Soraka mid is like fighting a Kassadin who can heal. I hate it.