Masteries for season 4 have been released.  Here's a calculator you can use to check them all out, etc

http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1pxzou/preseason_4_mastery_calculator/

hmm...

man... karl and hunny are lingering in gold 1.  Both are putting in a bunch of time to hit plat before season's end.  Right this second, karl is 86 lp in gold 1.  They only get between 4-8 lp per game.  Been watching them a bunch the last few nights and its alot of up and down.  Karl's closest atm - really hope you can make it this season, bro!

Nope.

I had a streak of bad teams.  I completely and totally was dominating in general from jungle (well, when my adc doesn't steal my blue when I'm playing jungle Udyr...).  But Riot was putting me on teams tonight that were simply inferior to the other teams.  This meant that I lost 5 in a row.

Its just stupid.  It game after game my team is simply incapable of getting a kill without me - I'm having 90%+ kill participation rates in pretty much every game early on.  The other jungler is never that high, and I always get more early dragons and all that too.  But I'm always the one eating the loss because my lanes are simply worse players.

Given that I get +5 for a win and -5 for a loss, I simply can't recover from a 5 game losing streak.  Its not possible.

Riot's system was simply unfair to me.  I had a 55.5% win rate when I started getting +5/-5.  55.5%.  Its gone down to about 53% now since I've had a bad stream and am only winning about 50% of my games now, but at 55% winrate, they decide to super clamp me and make it impossible for me to advance simply because I lost 2 best of 5's in a row.

Thats not fair to clamp somebody that hard for losing in 2 statistically insignificant sets of games.  I went 2/6 in a set of those two best of 5's.  So over the next 30+ games now, I go from getting normal lp (roughly 20 for a win -12 for a loss) to +5/-5.  For going 2/6 over a set of 8 games.  But Riot has always done this crap where they ignore stats.  You basically can't advance when they give you +5/-5 for your games.

I'm sure that Riot would say that if I played enough games I'd break the clamping eventually, but it takes A LOT of games to break out of this clamping, and if you have a run of bad teams like I did tonight, its bad with a vengeance.  I also just havent had that good luck streak to really get out of the clamping.  Maybe if I could win like 6 or 7 in a row I'd break it, but I'm not getting good teammates.  I either have to straight carry from the jungle or I lose in general.

Ultimately, I can't carry hard enough as a jungler.  There just isn't enough gold in the jungle and junglers don't scale enough.  I can consistently start 5/1/x and the like with WW.  CONSISTENTLY.  But I lose those games a lot because even WW (who scales as well as pretty much any jungler) just can't carry hard enough to make up for a single terrible solo lane.

I mean, I'm consistently reaching the mid/late game with many more kills than anybody else on my team (and not from kill stealing either), which is a major problem.  But nobody else on my team is capable of getting kills, and I'm playing a position that doesn't scale all that well with gold.  But the other team always has somebody getting kills that scales better.

Its the old problem - you need to play roles with gold to advance quickly, and jungle and support just don't have the gold or the scaling to do it.

You don't normally donate blue to your adc?  I'm starting to understand why you are having so much trouble.    Adc's need blue more than udyr... I'm sure of it.

Here's hoping season 4 changes that for you.  I think it will. 

I still think you should give aatrox a go.  If you manged to get that 5/1 k/d setup, it goes a long way on him.  And he's really good at quick split pushing and 1v1 pick offs.  I know you won't (you are karl), but still think that might help.  Quick split pushing power is very useful when your lanes are blowing it. 

Split pushing and attempted 1v1 pickoffs are the #1 way to lose winnable ranked games.  By far.  I've seen so many winnable games lost because somebody decides to go split push and somebody else loses their mind and gets caught.  Thats GG.  You just can't trust 4 random teammates enough to do that consistently.

Well, you can do it semi consistently - I think its more of a timing thing.  For instance, I gank top lane - my top laner dies along with their jungler and I'm still in good shape.  With aatrox, I can typically pound down a tower fairly quickly and safely to create some additional pressure.  I'm more speaking about taking advantages of times of opportunity to quickly secure objectives.  Aatrox just exceeds at that because of his kit (also that you start dorans) and his ult can be used to expedite dropping a tower faster than many other junglers could pull off.  I'm not talking about outright split pushing as aatrox unless there's a very favorable scenario - but even then, the risk of someone doing something idiotic and getting picked off skyrockets.  I just think aatrox specifically as a jungler has more opportunities than most to lock some additional tower damage safely and quickly that can result in changing the landscape and setting up the next move.

remember who you're talking to Karl.

this is the guy who plays support Heimerdinger, takes 25% of the CS and rushes Banner of Command.

For the win.  You are a grouch.  I mean, you should be if you personally had to lane with me as heimer, true. 

Actually, I wonder if anyone is interested in having a discussion re: support heimer.  I've been posting about this in other places, but I'll give a shot here in the hopes of any interesting dialog.  Caveat - I know a lot of the following is a bit douchy.  Point that out again if you are a bitter old man.  The goal is trying to play a meaningful Heimer build going.  Here's the copy pastes from another forum.

layed donger most games tonight as support.  Mixed results.  Kind of difficult to gauge imo - I don't believe any game was lost by my lane.  Most games ended up where there were major probs in other locations that trickled over to bot lane.  Honestly, I think he can work in this season (where you play him as an AP carry support - eg that means at start you gimp on wards, get a sightstone, then build w/e ap you want).  Next season I think he will be outclassed and even playing him as support (where he can "kind of" do well) will go to poo town. 

Let me frame that last comment a bit.  Think about the current meta when played properly.  You have a support that really invests a ton in the team.  Wards, oracles, etc.  Odds are you don't have anything even remotely fun, but you are helping the team a ton.  Now, consider that same role but saturate it with money from masteries and items.  The change isn't simply - oh - sona now has 3k gold, better get a deathcap (or better item - idc - im tired).  It's what is best for the team... and then, on further analysis, damage + vision is best for the team.  So, maybe I don't pick a normal support.  Maybe I pick champs that can truly carry out of support.  Now, we see a shift in the meta and the question becomes who is the best at helping an ADC, providing vision, and carrying.  The answer is incredibly varied.  Consider an ALI with tons of money.  He's no where near as useful in the support role as someone else (most anyone else).  But now consider a lulu.  Very different.  I think what we will see if folks that would normally be an AP mid rotating to the support role and doing well.  I also think that in that competition, Heimer falls by the wayside.  Anyway, sleep = me

Been theory crafting up a storm.  A few things I learned 1st - turrets normal attack benefits from mpen.  The turrets lasers can benefit from rylia/liandris, but, of course, are much more unreliable.

K so I've been focused entirely on support build theory crafting.  Specifically blue side.  Here's the blue side trick.  Place 3 turrets in the bush near dbl golums and tell your adc you are going to be about 10 seconds late.  Keep in mind the downside to this is that you are 10 seconds late to lane and cannot add damage on a red start leash.  Eg... its a little bit of a dick move, but nothing insane. 

There are a few different ways to do this to ensure you have proper vision bot lane to guard for an invade.  You can use your crap ward if you opted for a support setup, you can place a turret in the tri immediately (must be your 1st turret), or you can drop a turret in the bushes near dbl golums, run to tri wait until just before your next turret is ready and then ward the river.  Bottom line, you want at least 2 turrets in the golum bush, but preferable 3 before 130 if you need to hit base. 

golums spawn at 2:05.  If you are running gp/10 runes and depending on your build, you can back a smidge before 1:30 and pick up another ward from the quick gold income.  Then, run up and kill golums then hit lane.  By soloing it, you take little to no damage due to the turrets and are about 80-90% to level 2.  1 additional creep dying near you puts you to level 2.  At this point due to golum gold + gold over time, you have between 150 gold-190 gold before hitting lane along with an extra ward if you backed. 

I've been toying with several starting builds/masteries.  The most douchey one I've come up with is gold dinger.  Max gold per runes/max gold masteries

.  Start with the setup I mentioned for dbl golums.  By completely screwing your adc, you can come to lane with a philo.  Just stay and kill the golums, then base... also run smite.  You will have enough for a philo immediately or if you stall 8 more seconds at base you will have a pick.  also, you come to lane with zero wards this way... uber douchy.

I'll try to provide some clips, etc, later today if I get a chance (and remember to).  I played a bunch of support heimer.  2 games lasted like 1 hour and 20 minutes a piece.  I was able to pull off my super cheesy strategy where I farm double golums while laned with an AP zyra fairly consistently.  It's still not a fully formed strat and still quite crapheadish, but it does succeed in holding your tower very well and heimer certain gets gold out the wazoo.

recapping the current iteration of my build.  1 - I don't find a ton of use in exhaust or ignite as Heimer (ignite is more useful I suppose, but I'm typically setting up a line of turrets behind where the lane would push and then trying to hit rockets etc.  This generally means that I keep my distance and we keep out tower.  That said, going along with this mentality (don't really need exhaust/ignite), I've been running smite... which fits my blue side strategy well. 

Masteries - 1 point in smite for 10 bonus gold, 9 points in offensive tree for cdr, ap, mpen, 11 points in utility for extra mana regen, gold income, and bonus starting gold.  Runes - full retard - max gp/10 setup with some flat or scaling AP (can't remember).

Setup - zyra (full ap build) + heimer bot.  An adc somewhere else on the map is preferrable imo. 

Initial goal - philostone rush.  Note - this setup does force zyra to solo about 30 seconds which is crap, but that's what it is currently.  In base, pick up the 2 components of philostone that you can afford.  Run to tri bush and drop a turret.  Whenever turrets are up, then drop them in the bush near double golums.  You want to get 2 there before red spawns.  About 10 seconds before red spawns, go toss your bs ward in the river to provide some extra vision for zyra and to cover her a smidge while you are away.  Then, add damage on red buff if the jungler is starting there.  Be at double golumns by 2:05 when they spawn.  Smite immediately, drop another turret (this removes the one that was in the tri bush).  Goto base.  You now have enough to complete philo.  Wait about 8 more seconds and you will have enough for a green ward.  Get that and head to lane.

Now, in lane, setup 1-2 turrets behind wherever the action is an make sure the enemy team sees you there so they ease up on the extra pressure they likely tried to put on zyra realizing she was alone.  Once you have 2 turrets up (still 1 left at dbl golums), rotate back to double golums by yourself.  Smite and damage them for quick gold.  Repeat.  Only from here on out you will try to keep 3 turrets in lane and continue to solo double golums as much as possible.  You can also easily hold the lane if zyra needs to go back at this point to get a chalice.  Once zyra has chalice, the lane is exceedingly easy to defend and hold. 

Build - I have no idea what is best.  You have ridiculous amounts of gold... reason being that any time zyra misses a cs, one of your turrets likely picks it up.  You will have a philo/sightstone in no time at all.  For the zyra/heimer combo, I do like getting banner of command.  The earlier the better.  Extra dmg + regen from heimer = a tough lane to crack. 

Downside - you end up taking too much cs with turrets.  You also deprive your jungler of dbl golumns quite a bit.  You create a riskier situation for about 30 seconds for zyra during initial laning.  The main problem, I think, is that heimer, for all the crap he's taking, isn't giving back enough to the team.

Also, one thing I took away from the teambuilder ama

"the matchmaking system takes into account role and champion separately. So, it might recognize that you are a professional Marksman player, but more skilled and experienced with Ezreal than Quinn. This means the system will find appropriate opponents to help ramp up your experience when you are on Quinn."

while i agree you may not have single handly lost any games as support heim, i don't think that having support heim who has a lot of gold directly contributes to winning. It is able to draw out a losing game though

althoughi agree that zyra is a decent option at holding 2v1 and keeping the tower alive, onee thing i think you haven't mentioned is just how much gold you are funneling into the enemy adc with urrets and plants. That one Corki game he had 305 CS at 38 minutes. That's pretty hig Luckly for you the Corki kept getting caught by Aatrox. For this reason you probably need a good assassin like Fizz on your team to wipe out the over-CS'd enemy carry.

that said, support heim does manage to fix one of the big problems of ADC-less comps: you can take towers pretty quickly. Although heimer has the problem that you have to take the towers after getting an ace. But i'll give you props for fixing that one big whole in your comp.

heh - that's pretty much my conclusion as well.  Wondering it there's a way around that based on play style or itemization but keeping the basic cheese (farm dbl golums ad infinitum). 

True, but turrets/plants aren't worth as much as creeps.  But its definitely additional money in an adcs hands. In our last game, a mid other than nid would have been preferable imo. 

Any thoughts on a different itemization set or rune/master changes?  I've run a 21/0/9 setup with AP runes.  As long as I run smite, I can always get the cheap gold out of dbls and still have more income than your typical support without really hurting the adc (imo - still don't think ignite/exhaust matter much based on my play style with heim).  So, I'd still get items pretty easily.

Then again, with the gold donger setup, I really good income and could rush most items (I missed Demigod and being able to drop items for your teammates)... just not sure what item would be ideal. 

Also, I'm probably putting way too much thought into this as whole concept might be blown out of the water completely in season 4.

Honestly the biggest improvement i would do would only do this on purple side, and 2v1 top lane. Right now your early game is effectively a 2v1 because you have no defensive runes, and you come to lane only with Philo and nothing eilse really. That is not as big of a deal against melees top. Plus,, turrets will be more effective and you can push hard and try to take (or at least damage) the enemy turret. Then, swap back to botlane after first shop with your strong double smite dragon control.