any folks around for an in house?  I think we need like 3 and we could pull it off.  Hop online and pm me in game if u are up for it.  About to start a 5 man game atm.  out in like 20-40 min

ooohhhhh, I want to be cool too

http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/20500934

I will add you to the list if I see you being active in ranked on and off this week.  Would love to add you amongst everyone.  But mr synn isn't really into lol for reasons stated above.  .  Now.. if you were.  well...

Diamond's tiger udyr - dorans blade start.  Here's a really good write up on masteries, etc.  Worth a look. 

http://how2jungle.net/gambit-gaming-diamonds-dorans-blade-tiger-udyr/#more-1147

So, last night I got hit with the lag bat in game.  In hindsight, I don't think it was LoL specifically.  Oddly, a bunch of other fellows made a post that hit front page about lag last night.  Seems the issue was related to comcat/cox.  I have neither, but the same issues - low/normal ping, high semi-consistent lag.  For instance, I'd be going for a last hit, not even see the aa animation, and if I was lucky see the gold pop up indicating I made a last hit. Made playing vayne pretty damn miserable.  Anyway, I run a speedtest and I'm getting 2 Meg download/3 meg up (normally, I'm 33meg dl/3-4 meg up).  I restart my cable modem and I'm back in business.  Not even kind of sure how to diagnose the problem other than to call out the systems.  No idea why I'd need to restart my cable modem on a regular basis, but that seems like something I need to do.  *shrug*

So, I've been duoing a smidge lately with karl in ranked.  Both of our accounts were demoted to silver IV due to not playing ranked. Anyway, we've gone 4/5 in ranked the past couple of nights and both were promoted to silver III yesterday.  The competition has been pretty weak for the most part and the games relative cake walks.  Oddly, our last game in ranked at silver IV - I believe we were up against high gold level players.  Not sure if its a glitch or what.  Skill cap was pretty low at any rate.  Anyway, mayhaps karl and I will continue to play ranked on and off.  Good results so far.

Well, I've been thinking through how to start to have a certain discussion for a bit now that's somewhat personal to me.  I'm honestly not all that sure how to really get into things without having a huge wave of negativity occur, but here goes at any rate.  I want to try to figure out a way to better deal with negativity in the game - originating both from me and from other people - and I'm really at a loss as to how to do so.  My minds likely going to go back and forth, so please bear with me. 

So, yesterday (we'll call this situation A), I invite a fellow that I met from the older gamers or some such organization that posted on reddit awhile back.  The goal of the group was to put like minded individuals together.   Like minded meant people that wanted to play the game for fun or competitively, but didn't want to play with douchebags that flame em, etc.  Anyway, I've noticed a trend with this particular pal recently (and note, this is a guy I play with maybe a couples times a week or so at best).  The trend is that he absolutely explodes if he's questioned about anything he's doing.  There's not like a huge build up - its just you know he's going to lose his shite on someone if he's pressed again.  Last night, a teammate wasn't happy about how this fellow reacted to a particular gank.  So, they go at it ever so briefy and eventually I ask folks to try to calm down a bit.  I guess I'll throw this comment in - I know plenty of times I've wound people up and been douchy - I'm definitely included in the group of people that make LoL an unpleasant experience for some... I'm just trying to look at a particular instance at the moment.

I'll jump back to that example in a moment, but let's talk about how things should be (imo at least).  The ideal setup in my mind is for pals to come together and play a game they enjoy.  Pretty basic stuff.  Compliments and positive call outs when someone did a great job.  No snapping or insulting when something goes the wrong way.  The occasional poking fun to be sure, but nothing excessive.  Anyway, that's ideal.  I don't think I see the ideal on any given night.  hell - if might have been weeks since I've seen that sort of thing.  And that's kind of depressing.  To the point that you eventually decide you'd rather not even play with certain individuals. So, knowing that I'm actually quite prone to douchebaggery, I often try to be both proactive and reactive.  For instance, if I realize I'm running my mouth and being a dick, well, I'll drop from the skype call.  If I recognize my poor behavior after the fact, I might just stay off skype altogether for a day or so and apologize to whomever I likely offended.  Anyway, I still screw up, so I'm trying think of ways to reduce the odds of negative behavior from me (as I'm the only one I can really control, per se).  On that angle, I often think that people just don't give a fug and would prefer to act however they want.  After all, its just your "internet pals."  Worst case they get sick of your crap and you just move along and play with other pals.  Unfortunately for me, I apparently do care and I'm actually pretty saddened when I behave terribly towards folks that I had considered friends.  And also feel the same way when folks treat me similarly. 

Anyway, so how does one deal with situation A?  In the particular situation I mentioned, someone has something crappy going on in their life (had a bad day, w/e) and is ready to snap.  You can quickly tell that this is the case based on your interaction with them.  So, prodding said person will very likely result in some toxic vomit that will also likely spill over to anyone that is easily influenced by toxicity.  I think in the particular example I mentioned, one player prodded the exploding man, exploding man started to explode, pacov tried to diffuse the exploding man some and I think by that time the other player was already wound up and now also ready to be toxic.  So the cause of the toxicity is 1 player coming to the game with a chip on their shoulder, someone calling out mr chippy, mr chippy exploding on someone, and the next thing you know now you have 2 players being much more agitated.... which then can spill over to more people.

Random interjection - is there a way to mute a particular individual in a group skype call?  I honestly don't know and that would be a useful to know for me anyway.

OK - so things that I've found that often help remove/prevent toxicity. Player combinations.  For instance, karl and I did a few ranked games the past few days.  We got him to play jungler and me to play w/e else.  I find that in instances where its just me and another player AND we aren't in the same lane, well - any negative energy is likely going to be me saying something briefly over voice chat about X player being a smeh - usually he and I aren't busting each others chops in those duo instances. 

Other thoughts - don't use voice chat in some settings.  If you are with a group that often ends up with a few potential toxic folks, then sometimes its wise to just avoid voice chat altogether.  The toxicity rolls over to everyone if the whole team is in voice chat and there are a few toxic folks already wound up.  If you realize this, dropping from voice chat is probably the best route to still being able to enjoy yourself. 

I guess I'll throw in one more thing and then move along for now.  I've been on anti-depressants since my father passed a few years ago and am going through a transition while I'm reducing the dosage on those drugs.  It's a pretty big body chemistry change and its taking a bit of effort to stay EVEN.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of things.  Anyway, that brings me to my last comment that was particularly saddening, but just a heads up.  I offended thunder a few posts back and he decided he'd prefer to cease playing LoL with me as a result or as a combination of things leading up to that.  I apologized to him privately as well, but have not heard from him since.  Losing him as a pal is a sad thing for me personally.  All the more reason why I'm interested in continuing to think about toxicity and how to make our gaming environment more fun/friendly. 

I don't know if any of you have any thoughts on how to make things better, but I'm interested in hearing them if you do.  thanks.

I'd just call them a fuckin asshole and tell them to take a chill pill, but I'm an asshole.

From my enjoyment of this thread's frequent breakouts, you guys take thing pretty seriously.  Remembering it's a game helps a lot.  I'd have quit LOL a hundred times by now if I were as serious as you guys were.  I've been outright trolled more often than I want to think about, and juvenile would be a polite description of the typical behavior of people playing the game when something goes south for reasons beyond your control.

welcome to the club....

Honestly, I don't fully know how to take the game less seriously.  That definitely seems along the lines of what I need to do, though.  If you think about it for just a few seconds, the idiotic stuff that gets us amped up is just nonsense.  But I'd think its safe to say that most of the folks that follow this thread and we play with are pretty passionate about the game. You don't accumulate a ton of statistics, learn all the nuances of the game, etc, and not be passionate. 

I suppose its useful to add that I'm mostly talking about toxicity as it pertains to our little group as opposed to the general LoL solo queue setting.  I think I've actually got a pretty good handle on that sort of thing.  I leave all chat off so I don't ever have to listen to nonsense from the enemy team (or be tempted to insult/troll them) and I usually just mute anyone on my team in solo queue that might be acting like a jerk, etc... and I usually try to keep my comments to myself.  That usually results in a fairly enjoyable experience for me at the very least.  Other's that I play with regularly might have issues with solo queue, but I think I'm generally fine there.  It's when we get into our group play dynamic that we often get into a toxic mess.  The only thing I can think to do is just keep my fing mouth shut... but then there are triggers like other people getting worked up that spill over to me (other times I'm the root cause of negativity, ofc).  So, I want to play with folks that can bring out the worst in me and vice versa because I generally enjoy playing with them.  In no case is someone raging toxic 100% of the time.  What I think I need to figure out how to do is find better ways of communicating.  Guy X is out farming when he's needed for a team fight... how does one convey get over here in a nice way that doesn't offend the guy that "knows" he's doing the right thing by afk farming.  Guy X is already offended that you are telling him he's needed often.  In solo queue I go a round about way and just ping whoever is farming and then ping retreat on our grouped team... that usually sends a clear message that isn't all that rude and lets everyone know don't go in without farmer john.  You try to convey the same thing in voice chat... often it comes across very negative because you are pointing out that someone made a decision to farm that is quite possibly hurting the team at that moment. 

Anyway, because folks are passionate, they tend to get pissy when folks under perform or are having a bad game themselves.  Doesn't matter that its a game and we are playing it for fun at that point.  You aren't having fun and now its angry screaming baby time. 

Its why I stopped playing with ya, or LOL really. 

This is one of those games b/c it has such a high visiblity within the esports(like SC2, CS, COD, etc) that the art of enjoying a game b/c its a game is lost.

Win/Lost has become the judgement of fun. Not simply having a good time.

And as epsorts evolves and more games try to capture that momentum, it permeates into all games. 

Meta driven gameplay results in very polar definitions of fun and how to play a game.

I not trying to knock down esports or those who get very passionate about winning/meta/esports. Just a perspective look at perhasp a side effect of the 'new' gaming culture.

i really don't think this is true. We all have games where we feed 0/14 and generally speaking there is little-to-no chewing out. Usually people understand this, especially if you're someone who plays with the group a lot or is making a sincere effort to learn a new character and it just isn't working out. 

The times things are most tense is when a game is really close (or was lost due to a big misplay in early game such as a bad dragon fight or a bad 4v2 dive botlane that turns into a triple kill). 

Or if there are people who either are lower skilled or have particular play patterns that lose us games repeatably and they don't ever try to change or address the behavior. 

These two circumstances are almost always the source of disagreements on here or in voice chat. People very rarely get super mad if every lane loses. People don't even get hella pissed if someone else missmites and we lose the game (that one time Bryff farmed a creepwave and pacov missed as nunu excluded )

Almost everyone who posts here was originally part of "high elo demigod". Though obviously you could toy around with the weaker champs such as DA, we mostly focused on high level gameplay. That is, we all bought Currency ASAP, Generals always started monks, everyone used BotF. Even though like we play to have fun, we also understand that you can play to have fun... while also playing optimally. 

i don't think that 'i just wanna play anyone everywhere and be successful' is more automatically more fun. This is an extremely naive viewpoint based off of "novelty is more fun that structure". It comes from games such as Call of Duty where people can just come and go as they please. This is only "fun" for people who want zero progression. MOBAs are a game about progression.

It's even more naive because the current meta (excluding high Elo 2v1 lane swaps that invalidate melee solo lanes with no ranged farming tools) ensures that every single "role" is viable. Every single role:

- tanks

- assassins

- supports

- pushers

- carries

- teamfighters

- duelists

Every single role has a place in this meta. The only role that is disadvantaged in the current meta are melee carries (Yi, Trynd, Fiora, Aatrox). And Tryndamere is perma-banned in Plat. 

i think this happens a lot. A lot of the "negative" talk is more "you should do this and not that and (most importantly) this is why i think why".

Or "wtf how did this ___ awful thing happened. Maybe ____".

i think this is because all of us are trying to improve our game. Whether it is learning a new champ/role or trying out new strategies i think most of us approach each game with trying to learn stuff. Again, this feeds into the "high elo demigod".

People are passionate and want to win/learn and LoL is complex enough that everyone has a little bit of a different idea on how to win. 

#Skype:

i think that hanging up on everyone is frustrating for everyone else (because you're the only hosting, usually) but i do think that leaving a Skype call is the best thing to do in some situations. It's important to be mindful of what you do afterwards (either play the game "right" or just surrender. Don't do dick things like go into a lane 2v1 and take all the farm, etc).  

i know that you can personally mute people in your group chat by right clicking. 

This is one of the reasons i advocate TS more than Skype because you can safely leave the room if you're frustrated or mute single people. 

(btw all of this is sometimes why i refuse to go onto skype with y'all

That's a very good point.  Thanks for all the feedback so far.  I don't really have much to say on the topic right this second (brain is elsewhere a smidge - I'm sure it will return to this topic before the night is over...)

#vayne

there is a bit of a mob mentality about stuff regarding why people lost a fight.

Usually lost fights straight-up 5v5s come down to:

1- bad targeting (usually AP/top, not ADC) - also includes missed skillshots 

2- bad positioning (usually AP/ADC)

3- they have summoners while you didn't (typically occurs in initiation)

It usually isn't due to bad items or bad skill order (suboptimal skill orders only typically reduces damage by 30%. Even less for an ADC who relies more on items - Obviously that isn't the case if you do things like max Anivia Wall or an Ashe maxing Hawkshot. But maxing a real damage skill versus another...). 

ANYWAY:

Maxing W on Vayne is something you only do against melees. \:

Maxing W in lane is really bad and relies on either being absurdly ahead (so getting the proc is easy) or the enemy support being completely incompetent. 

So no idea why Brad Wong / Karl got after you for maxing something that is a situational laning to begin with. Tumble is way way better in teamfights because of the repositioning it allows you.

THAT SAID: You probably shouldn't be building a PD as your 2nd item if you go BotRK. Obviously, Vayne is slightly less-worse to do that but if you go PD you're buying a super-multiplicative item on something that doesn't multiply well (BotRK only has 25 AD and it's % passive/active can't crit). i know that more pros have been doing BotRK into PD for some odd reason but...

But just go IE. BotRK > IE > LW is a super strong build on ADCs that want to go BotRK first (Vayne, Twitch, Varus, Trist, Kog, Quinn). 

PD is a pretty weak item and actually if you watch a lot of high Elo games they will stop at Zeal, build a LW, and then complete the PD (or go Stattik Shiv instead for split-push or waveclear). PD is also pretty weak for killing towers (only the AS does anything and you have no AD with just a BotRK). 

This was kinda another case of that mob mentality because someone said something (omg, we lost that fight because Vayne did no damage). Even though that statement wasn't accurate. 

#"kill steals"

In particular, early game (unless it is a 3v2 gank botlane) damage is mostly on the AP. This is why it's usually better to let AP get kills early game (THIS IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT IF THEY ROAM. If a midlane roams bot, gets 2 assists, then helps with dragon and goes super oom, so has to go to base... while the enemy mid lane gets to farm for 2 minutes your midlaner has now fallen way behind in levels and probably gold, and potentially used flash/ignite in the gank so they are down summoners. Behind behind a level (11 versus 10 in particular) is gigantic midlane)

i watched some of your games yesterday and your jungler was trying to hard to let you get the kill, you both ended up using flash for the kill because he wasn't applying red buff very well. An assist + no flash is better than the extra 200/300 gold. That's equivalent to using barrier to get a cannon minion in terms of CD/gold value. 

didn't read your latest post hedgie - will in the am - thx for the vayne stuff.  I'm paying attention to a lot of the behavior patterns with a focus on where I become a toxic fuck.  I have some ideas.  I'll jibba jabber here, but I think I might make a longer vlog covering some more thoughts in detail.  Think it might be good for some of us.  Anyway, thx for the games tonight folks.  Off to bed.  Night!

Was this referring to something tonight?  Because I don't remember complaints about that - the complaint was that we started a fight top (after announcing I was going to wander through their jungle looking for a fight), and their bot lane showed up unexpectedly, leading to a 0-3 exchange.  We wanted the MIA call from pacov in chat, he thought that it didn't need to be called since Cait and him had backed recently.

I was complaining about adc builds mainly because I thought that pacov had taken more defensive runes/masteries.  He announced that he was doing this in one game, but I might have been wrong about that game - maybe he did it for the game before with support Teemo and I got it mixed up.

This really ties into the fact that pacov has a generous interpretation of "free", while I have a very conservative interpretation.  I think that pacov chalks up many of these kills as "free", while I don't really agree.

My view is that pretty much every ADC has multiple escapes nowadays (flash plus something built in).  If one of them comes up, it goes from a "free" kill that pacov wants handed off to him, to a non kill.  I mean, in the game in question there was a Cait involved.  If her net comes up, she gets away.  Same for Blitz's passive/speed buff.

So I am generally going to take the kill if its there unless I know every flash is on CD, and every escape is on CD, and I know the position of every enemy on the map.  If I can't know all that in a split second, I'm taking the kill if its there.

And really, there isn't a big advantage to putting the early kill on the ADC compared to the jungler or especially the mid.  Jungle/mid put down global map presence for the whole mid game.  That means you are basically distributing kill gold over the whole map.  If you give the kill to the ADC you get a little more power late game, but the gold gets locked into a lane for a much longer time in the mid game.

I was actually going to say this too.

There is very little complaining about somebody just playing badly, or one time screw ups.

The complaints are for egregiously stupid things (e.g. intentionally starting a 2v5 fight), or for doing the same dumb thing over and over.

I mean, if a Trist jumps into a fight and gets insta vaporized, I don't see a lot of complaints the first time.  But by the 3rd time in a game, yeah, people are going to let you know.

And really, if somebody throws a 45 minute game because they decide to charge in 1v5, they deserve some flak IMO.  Its not personal - we are pretty good about not personally insulting people.  The criticisms are really directed at specific behaviors.