Pacov forgot to take his medicine last night is all.

huehuehue

mmm'k.  Looks a bit spammy, but made me laugh, so no exciting delete for now. 

Anywho, onto other stuff.  I've decided to change up my xin build to a more logical start.  I'm still running 0/9/21 atm and will likely stick with that, but I'm scrapping the boots/pots start.  risk is not worth the reward.  For those that didn't follow much with my xin bit, the strategy was to go boots/5 pots at start.  Get a hard leash at blue/red, beeline to our teams blue/red and then gank top repeatedly.  The strategy doesn't require a ton to work well.  You just need a top laner that can manage to have some hp after being in lane for a minute (about how long it takes to get to top for xin after clearing the 1st blue/red).  AND, you need an actual solid, intelligent leash on the 1st blue/red (which is surprisingly difficult for some).  AND you need to not get counter jungled.  Anyway, if that comes together (it often does), then you just run top and you are pretty well guaranteed to get a flash out of the enemy top laner.  Then you just camp a bit and are extremely likely to secure 1-2 kills for you or your top laner. 

The downside - if anything doesn't work that way, you are stuck with boots in your jungle - which means the jungle can basically kick your ass.  This also means that you are extremely vulernable to counter jungling and you can't gank without extreme risk as your hp would be low from the jungle damage.  You literally end up having to back super early and pick up a machete to keep going.  Anyway, I've decide to go with the more standard machete/5 pots build.  This compensates easily for weak leashes and positions you to more easily get back on your feet if you are counter jungled.  The ganks top are SLIGHTLY less effective, but still reasonably strong. 

Other stuff - I've been semi consistently been rushing zephyr. I still think this is a really good item when you are already going deep in the support tree for extra ms/as.  The added move speed makes xin extremely good at picking off someone and starting an engage if anyone is slightly out of position.  The attack speed works great with his q (I think its his q, maybe his w).  The q gets knock ups faster for added cc - and then he also gets a cool down reduction per hit on other abilities - so AS is essentially really good cdr.  I think I might drop the early zephyr and go for a botrk.  My build overall build is pretty wonky.  I typically get that zephyr early and then start building team items/tank items. 

If you are talking about jungler builds, can you please develop some team builds, instead of a bunch of variations of glass cannon builds that generate good kill numbers for you, but hurt your team?

If you are going to jungle, you must be able to tank.  I'm not talking about going in and killing one person before instantly dying.  I'm talking about actual front line pressure where you are able to initiate, survive for a while if targeted, and provide team utility.  So far, you  have been refusing to do this even when your team has no other front line presence, and it REALLY hurts your team to have 0 front line.

You have to be able to play most of these junglers without building any substantial damage items.  Or, at most, one hybrid damage/defense item (lets say FM or maybe BC).  It is NOT generally OK to rush BotRK/Lizard SS item/Zephyr when you have to provide substantial front line presence.  With the gold as it is in jungle, this means you won't have many tanky items til 20-25 minutes, at which point you are already really hurting your team by being a glass cannon.

I mean, we were playing the other night where you were Xin and top was Jayce, so we had no other front line champs.  We said to you ahead of time that you have to go straight tank.  But I looked at your build at 21 minutes and you had 0 money in defense other than your boots.  You had rushed damage again with the plan of eventually going defensive, but then we had a LONG time where we had to try and teamfight while 5 glass cannons and no initiator that can live for more than a second.

I get that building damage leads to better stats.  But tanking and playing jungle is about the TEAM, not your stat line.  You need to judge success of builds based on how well your team functions, not on how good your personal stat line is.

Also, note that this means you should place more value in team defensive items, not the ones that only help you.  Warmogs, no (with a few exceptions like Mundo).  Randuins/FH yes.

Well, I agree some here, but not completely.  For instance, building things on certain junglers that enable you to do more dmg or gank more effectively (not tank items) have a place.  I most instances, I do end up with a tanky build come end of game or at least have some tanky stuff.  

And then there's a "what is your composition" sort of thing.  I personally don't think that if you have a mostly pure tank/cc machine like shen on your team that the jungler should also build pure tank.  I've been playing alot of xin lately - and while can be a very effective tank if built that way, I graviate towards dmg early and then migrate towards tank later.  It's not perfect and I'm still thinking through alternative builds etc. 

bah - true that I refuse to do it some though.

probably fair statements. 

Rubbish.  Well, your implication is anyway.  I'm building characters like xin the way I do because I find that much more effective for ganks and securing kills.  It's not perfect, but its not about padding personal stats.  fuck that.  What we differ on and what I'm trying to determine is when is the best time in a given game to build X item.  With characters like nunu/naut (my best junglers imo), I have relatively static builds that prioritize assisting in ganks, etc, but immediately go towards a tanking approach.  Other junglers I'm still working on and trying to come up with a decent balance.  I could easily build xin the same way, but imo he'd then become an inferior pick in the jungle. 

Here's a decent article from stonewall about various types of builds on diff types of junglers - http://www.reignofgaming.net/tier-lists/jungle-tier-list/24312-jungle-tier-list-lissandra-era.

The short version is that I very much contest the idea that there are only tank junglers.  tis a silly concept and narrow minded imo. 

I'm saying that you judge the performance of players and builds by their kill/death ratio (and maybe sometimes their k/d/a ratio).  I think that we all know that after many of your games, you say "well, lets see how everybody did" and then read off their scores.  You also justify your own performances repeatedly by citing kill/death ratios.

I'm also saying that this is a bad way of evaluating performance in many positions.  It is modestly meaningful for ADC/mid, but for tanks especially, it doesn't mean much at all.  Your job as a tank is to do something that is usually not rewarded statistically.

I'm not saying saying that you build champions to pad your personal stats.  I am saying that you evaluate players/builds based on stats when you shouldn't.

And I'm saying that you usually get tanky about 20 minutes too late.  If you are the only front line member, you need to be fairly tanky by the time that any teamfighting starts.  So 15-20 minutes in.  That means you had better not be rushing BotRK.

Yes, if you have somebody like a Shen, you can delay a bit on the tanking items.

I agree that Spirit Guard Udyr is good, but it isn't 3250 good lol.

Also @pacov
Karl didn't say there were only tank junglers. He said if you are the only viable frontline on your team you should probably go straight tanky. 

well.. he also said this: 

If we don't have a tanky top, I should build tanky.  should...

HUMBUG (I'm working on words other than smeh, meh, and rubbish - not going so hot atm).  I dare not analyze anything - just be happy if we won a game and move along... I see.

I can't relate in the slightest as I've played support a ton. 

You can evaluate most if not all roles based on stats to some degree.  If I'm support and I'm 2/10/13, I probably did some awful things.  If I'm an adc or mid with 100 CS at 20 minutes, I probably did something terrible.  If the enemy adc is 12/2/19 and I'm 5/7/8, I probably did something awful.  If their top outfarmed mine by 80 cs, my top very likely did something awful.  Stats don't tell the whole story obviously for many reasons as well ofc.  Could have had a god awful game as jungler and still got that baron steal that actually won the game.  Doesn't mean stats are meaningless and shouldn't be used to evaluate players, etc.  It's all a factor.  If I see a game where I'm adc and I'm just way down on CS, well... I actually spend some time practicing cs'ing. 

Onto the thing I'm trying to figure out for myself. 

that's true and I'm going to work on that sort of thing with my non super pimp tank junglers.

Oh - bryff hit silver 1 tonight!

i remember that quote from last week - it was pretty hilarious. 

http://www.probuilds.net/champions/Nocturne

Anyway, a lot of what Karl is talking about is general jungling stuff (eg, tanky AD top that goes half damage half tank, glass cannon mid/support/adc). You're talking about a lot of edge cases. 

This is also in response to "you can analyze all roles by stats to a certain degree". Again, edge cases. Stats are very rarely indicative of "why" you won or lost. What got that Ez to be 12/2/15 in the first place and what could have been done to prevent it. 

Yes, Nocturne benefits a lot form building damage (and, realistically, it isn't a good idea to play him unless you have a tank top). But pure tank nocturne also works fine. Nocturne is a DPS champ.

You can increase your damage by increasing your damage... obviously. But you can also increase your damage by increasing your "S". Xin Zhao is the same way.

Compare that to most typical tanks, they don't really increase damage with damage. They increase damage by increasing S long enough to get more CDs (and amplifying teams damage by tanking and giving them survivablility).

Quality > Quantity. "A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing". 

It's much better to spend 15 minutes analyzing a game you lost than 5 minutes on 3 consecutive games. 

/pacov hate-train

Anyway, experimenting with this stuff is hardly bad, esp if the entire team is toying around with new champs (afterall: the best games to lose are the ones where everyone is experimenting and everyone loses lane - no one really to blame). It does help everyone educate everyone around you and these discussions are valuable resources.