Pacov's place to enjoy the show.

I've locked/archived this thread/blog and have started a new discussion over here:  http://forums.demigodthegame.com/454943/

Please join me if you like.

 

 

 


 

 

Am I streaming


 

 

Well, I started a thread  back in August (https://forums.joeuser.com/411269/) that's seen a lot of activity and actually had quite a few good bits of information for new and old players alike.  I figure it's time to start a new thread and perhaps keep the OP up-to-date with useful information, etc.  Feel free to use this post for any LoL discussion, etc.

Super fast background:  I played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust.  Back in August 2011 or so, I started getting heavily involved in LoL and folks have been kind enough to chime in with tips and links to various sites that have been quite useful to me.  In addition, I've been able to keep up with folks that I've played Demigod with in the past and meet some new folks that play LoL and frequent these message boards. 

Here's some of the things I've learned in the previous thread:

 New Player tips

  • Play the tutorial.
  • Consider picking up the starter bundle.  It's 530 RP (that's about $4).  You get 8 champs unlocked, a 4 win IP boost and a 10 win XP boost.  It's a pretty good deal (used it recently on an alt account).  You can find it in the game store under bundles.
  • Riot gives you 400 RP as soon as you hit level 5.  It's enough to buy some skins, a boost, or a cheap character. 
  • Learn to last hit!  Last hitting is simply landing the last hit on creeps.  If you last hit, you get gold for that kill.  The number of creeps you have killed is tracked in a value called CS.  You can see this number in the top right hand corner of the ui or by pressing tab.  Here's a really simple tutorial re: last hitting if you are brand new - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LheiRB76x5g
  • Read some guides on any character you want to try out.  The recommended builds (what you see when you go to a shop) are not optimal.  The guides include item suggestions and skill orders.  These are very useful in learning decent ways to build characters
  • Use the rune combiner to get level 3 runes prior to level 20 if you like.  You will need 375 IP.  Buy any tier 1 rune that costs 15 IP.  You need to purchase 25 of these.  Click on your rune page.  In the bottom right hand corner there is a button called the Rune Combiner.  If you place 5 runes in there, you can get a random rune that is 1 tier higher (eg if you have 5 tier 1 runes, you will get 1 random tier 2 rune.  Anyway, the math works out such that you spend 375 IP ( buy 25 tier 1 15 IP runes) and you get 1 completely random tier 3 rune.  Some of the quintessences are 2k IP, so if you luck out and get one of those, you just won the lottery.  You can always keep the random tier 2 rune if you end up with something good and don't want to trade it out yet.
  • Consider setting aside IP for tier 3 runes (available at level 20 and above).  You can't purchase them with real money - only IP.  Keep that in mind.

Great site I visit every day for LoL related news - http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends

pacov's misc info

Here's a guide I made

pacov's Guide to Improving at League of Legends and Moving Up in Elo

k - so I'm just going to put down some of my thoughts.  I'm not amazing at this game, but I do certain things that improve my odds of winning in ranked and so far its panning out just fine (bronze 5 to gold 5 in about a month or so).  We all have varied skill levels, so some of this might be useful and some not.  Caveat complete.

Prerequisite- you need to know how to play every single role.  You don't have to be a god at every single role (more power to you if you are - I'm certainly not).  You need to be able to play at a serviceable level in every single role and excel at least at 1 role (preferably 2).  In my case, I'm good at support and adc.  I'm not great, but have serviceable mids and jungles and so so tops.  Knowing what you are good at and bad at is very important.  If you don't know, I can probably tell you - but you really should know...  Anyway, you need to have enough champs to make solid picks in any role and you need to be able to cover any role if it comes down to it.  I'll talk about how to get better at specific roles in a bit.

Champ select advice - Don't be the "fill" guy unless you really feel like you are awesome in all roles.  Call your preferred role immediately when you hit the lobby.  Say "adc pref."  Do this as soon as you hit the lobby.  Some people believe that if you call a role you magically get it.  This is stupid, but if you call something out, folks will often accomodate your request.  If you are feeling wishy washy for whatever reason, call out multiple roles in order of what you want to play - "adc/mid pref."  In my experience, you generally do not want to call support.  It's a very important role, but you want to be in a position to carry every single game if possible.  If you aren't calling out a role, you are hoping that other players can carry you.  If you are hoping that folks will carry you, you don't deserve to win.  You need to know your best roles and you absolutely should request them.

Solo or duo in ranked? - Well, my 1st thought here is that you should solo.  If you solo, you have to rely on yourself.  IMO - its a much bigger test of skill to play solo and win than to duo.  Do you want someone to carry you or do you really want to know that you are actually good?  That said, provided you have the right duo partner, you can increase your odds of winning quite a bit.  The simple math is that instead of having 4 teammates as unknown quantities, you only have 3.  If you have a good duo teammate, you know what you can expect.  When you duo, you get the most bang for your buck by having complimentary roles.  Support/adc is good; jungle/mid also works.  Even if you don't have direct symmetry in roles, if you are an amazing mid and I'm an amazing adc, our odds go up quite a bit if we both get those roles.  Our odds go way down if we can't get those roles and are forced to play out of positions that we are weaker.  For example, Bryff is a good mid.  If he duo's up with me, the only way he will get to play that role is for me to call mid, take it myself, and then put myself into a position like support where I can't carry out of (I'm always 1st pick, Bryff is always last pick when we duo)... that and I have to show the mid I'm picking at the start which means Bryff gets hard countered.  In short, we can expect that we will be a disadvantage when duo queuing.  Now, if Bryff queued up with someone at a lower elo than himself that was solid, he'd likely be 1st pick and be able to get mid and have a better chance of carrying the game.  Anyway, you need to keep in mind where you end up in pick order when duoing if you aren't looking to go adc/support.  If you want that, you can usually get it. 

How do you get better in roles that you are not good at? - Well, here's what I do.  And this is really what I do on a regular basis.  I think about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at.  For instance, I realized that I don't play any hyper carry ads.  So, I read up on hyper carries like vayne and kog maw.  I look for guides on how to build them (most adcs are the same btw ), I look for vids on how people play them (eg how do I all in with a specific champ - is there a combo - when do I all in - what's the best way for me to burst - how should I behave in lane with this champ).  Then, I fire up a custom game and try out the mechanics of whatever champ vs AI.  Usually I learn a few tricks during that custom on how to position myself, etc.  Then, I'm off to normal games where I'll request the role or character I'm trying out.  Now, people still report your for being awful in normals, but it really is where you need to try out characters to see if you are any good or not as the bots are useless for proving your skill level to yourself.  So, fire up that normal and ask to play a role (again - after you've tried out the champ against bots).  If you don't know anyone you are with and you are quite awful, I suggest muting everyone at the start of the game.  Then, do your best.  Continue with this until you feel like you have a serviceable skill level in whatever role.  And keep in mind what you need to work on.  For me, I noticed I didn't really have alot of mids for ranked, so I started practicing some with gragas against and karth.  That way, I'll be able to get the job done if I need to play mid.  The next thing I need to do is put more time into being better top lane. Again, because while I prefer adc/support, I might need to play top for the team.  So, best to be ready for it.  Put your time in and practice roles. 

One last thought - there are certain things you can generally expect in ranked.  1 - if you are 1st pick, you generally can call whatever you want.  Common knowledge, I'm sure - but I'll add - CALL WHATEVER YOU WANT.  2 - if you duo queue, you generally can lock down both adc and support.  It works best if your adc is 1st pick, ofc.  I've bumped into like 10 random dedicated supports in all of my games of LoL.  People generally aren't going to call support. So, if you are 1st pick and duo'd, just call adc and then your duo partner can almost always get support.

 

Lol King profiles for ranked tracking

I'm not going to update this regularly, so just consider it a snapshot (I'll add a date when I update them).  Anyway, I enjoy seeing folks progress through ranked and keeping tabs on that sort of thing from time to time. 

Snapshot updated 05/28/2014

 Character guides

Mid Ziggs by cow - http://www.lolking.net/guides/7906

Comments (Page 97)
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on Aug 07, 2012

giant vid upload failed.  Might give that a go again.  Have a couple good short clips for later.

on Aug 07, 2012

OMG_Shiro
Riot seems to want every new champ to have MASSIVE amounts of mobility and I feel like it is leaving the older champions in the dust.

you know.. zyra?  The one with so so mobility and had her move speed nerfed?  Methinks you should at least consider the last 2 champs in your analysis. 

Re: mobility - yeah, I really agree.  Bot lane meta feels like its all about mobility (either shutting it down or having your own).  Mid is very much about that (ty ahri).  Top is really the one lane that doesn't feel this as much imo based on the current meta.  Don't confuse mobility and cc, though.  They coincide but are not the same.  Ahri specifically has both - mobility and cc.  Ez has mobility (but gets mobility + cc with a stunning support.  The stronger combo in any lane (imo) is mobility + cc.  Lulu was like this with a slow + speed, but nowhere near ahri.  blahblahblah

 

a few vids going up now.  Maintaining my 2nd f broken verdict.  Guy rq at 5 minutes.  My dick doesn't rq at 5 minutes.  We try to balance based on his skill set.  I'm no longer interested in his case.  Anyway, pacov has a thicker skin than some of our competitive brothers - but he is not a fan of rqing b-tards.  The stats on my pal... one site shows 260 ranked elo... which is unranked on other sites.. I have no idea... can't imagine that shite is accurate on lolmatches...

 

Tonight seemed to be quite volatile -  karl was super angry first, then cow, then cow/peter, etc, then broken/pacov.  Wonder why it was so bitchy tonight.  Anyway, I have my vids, so I'll see if I acted like a jackass.  Hopefully not.  Will apologize as appropriate.  anyway, thx for the games all. 

 

on Aug 08, 2012

I agree that Zyra doesn't have the mobility I was talking about, but she was pretty broken until the hotfix. It just feels like all of the competitive picks are either

1. Highly mobile or

2. Have a massive amount of utility (scouting/cc/buffs/etc.)

I think the old case in point for top was Riven (quad dash) or Jax, but I think they habe realized not every brusier needs a gap closer.

on Aug 08, 2012

OMG_Shiro
Riot seems to want every new champ to have MASSIVE amounts of mobility and I feel like it is leaving the older champions in the dust.

Eh, I dont know about this.  The last two AD carries are Draven and Varus, neither of which is really mobile.  Most champs seem to be balanced around either having strong CC or mobility.

Diana has some of both, but her balancing factor is that she has to get in close to do her thing, but she is an AP Carry too.  Thats a drawback.  Somebody like Akali gets around this by being able to disappear, but Diana doesn't even have that.  My guess is that Diana is going to be something of a Master Yi - amazing if left alone to do her thing, but less amazing if targeted properly.

on Aug 08, 2012

Well mayhaps my comment about ALL the new champions getting mobility is wrong. I do believe to be a viable pick a champion needs either mobility or cc though.

on Aug 08, 2012

OMG_Shiro
Well mayhaps my comment about ALL the new champions getting mobility is wrong. I do believe to be a viable pick a champion needs either mobility or cc though.

Generally maybe, but I don't even know if this is true.  Kog doesn't have any mobility and not a whole lot of CC, but is viable.  Morde was pretty powerful at one point too, although that was a while ago.

on Aug 08, 2012

I agree that Kog is a great carry, but the term protect the Kog'maw composition is spot on. If he doesn't have a team built around him he will be torn apart, and even if he is protected by his allies it is quite easy for someone like Gragas to instantly kill the Kog (As seen in the latest big tourney CLG.EU vs M5 where M5 devastated the enemies protect the Kog'maw comp with only Gragas).

on Aug 08, 2012

pacov wonders what we might need to change about our team game nights.  Going to recap some of the rage a little bit from my pov.

Game 1 - I run support ALI with jk2834uuoeruweiruiwue as MF.  Never played with jk.  He plays very passive and unresponsive to any initiation I can lock down (eg ALI really isn't all that useful if he just initiates and absorbs damage for no reason).  Anyway, guys a friend of thunder.  I don't bitch or rage, etc.  Just call out that I probably should have picked a diff support.  Anyway, in this game, things go awful and karl bitches up a storm for quite some time.  His bitching was a little excessive, but he had a valid point re: some of the completely stupid things that happened. 

Game X (2 and 3?) - Cow starts getting pissed because he feels like jack is just noob stomping or something to that effect.  Peter becomes enraged because he has to fight 1 guy in a 2v1 lane?  I didn't really understand what pete was so angry about, tbh, but he was definitely upset.  We need to figure out something so that pete can have fun when we play against certain folks.  He doesn't want to play on the same team as karl because he feels like karl bitches him out too much.  And after one of the last games, he didn't want to play on cow's team because he didn't want to let him down. 

Game 4 - pacov gets pissed a broken for flash initiating pointlessly at vlad.  Then pacov bitches more when broken refuses to leave the bush to absorb some damage as my support so we can somehow win our incredibly difficult 2v1 lane.  Broken rq's at 5 minutes in.  pacov decides he 's broken.

Anyway, I'm not sure what we need to change generally speaking.  I certainly don't like folks getting all bent out of shape.  I'm not really sure how to proceed.  I really don't care if someone is mad because they were outplayed.  That's a "good" type of mad imo.  Just wondering what we can do to keep the peace and enable folks to have more fun.  I feel like we're certainly trying to balance games more (as much as possible). 

on Aug 08, 2012

(Disclaimer: not trying to blame or single out anyone, this is just my thinking and trying to help out)

Rage quits is something I figured we wouldn't have to deal with in these team nights. It's really lame. In the last game, did I rage quit after JK walked into a bush with 5 people in it giving first blood, after we already saw them AND I pinged to fallback? (sorry JK) I thought I handled that rather well. It wasn't that hard really. To be fair, we did start the game with JK not being in vent. That may have caused some problems. I tried to move on and play things out and we ended up winning.

We just have to realize that people's skill levels are all over the place and there isn't an easy way to deal with it. Hell my skill levels can vary quite a bit on a given night. I think there's a list of basics that our team nights really need to work:

-GOOD communication

-Keeping your cool

-Always trying your best

-Having decent map awareness

-Adapting your playstyle for others

-Being able to play different roles and champs

-Staying fairly even in CS

-Paying attention to objectives and knowing when to go after them

Some people we have played with may not have all these basics down. That's fine, but it creates a challenge for the players that do. Especially when teams have to be built around people who only can/want to play one role or champ. I think this is partly where Peter's frustration came in. Switching around the lanes is pretty normal for above average ELO tier playing (I'm assuming 1250 ELO+), but there's a good number of people we play with who don't do much or any ranked. I don't know if we should be switching around lanes when playing with people who are only comfortable in a certain lane.

Also, if you want to improve as a player, you HAVE to learn other roles and champs. Even if it is just a few. It's better for your own enjoyment and for your team. I still have ridiculous amounts to learn and I've played nearly 1500 games.

tl:dr Skill levels vary, don't rage quit. Maybe we have to treat inhouse games less like ranked. Always be learning stuff.

PS: I may not have fancy ELO, but I win more games than I lose and I'm happy to help anyone out who wants it. Add me and PM me whenever (The Dude II)

on Aug 08, 2012

AragornV
I don't know if we should be switching around lanes when playing with people who are only comfortable in a certain lane.

Yeah - that seemed to really freak pete out for some reason.  I don't think we should have to make some rule for our games that you can't rotate lanes or change up the meta as a strategy.  I also don't know why, if it was a real concern, that folks couldn't just rotate to a different lane if there was a problem.  Is what it was, though.  From experience with pete, though, I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to change a lane if someone suggested that to him.  That was more than likely what we should have done in that one game (rotate cow from mid to bot - move support/ad to mid). 

re: rage quits - you really can't do much about that stuff.  Most folks that rq cannot be reasoned with to cease that behavior in my experience.  It's not like you are just telling one guy to fug off.  You are telling your entire team to fug off when you rq.  People that are willing to do that (screw you guys, I'm outta here) typically aren't all that reasonable. 

Anyway, there's been a lot of negativity lately. 

on Aug 08, 2012

I don't think we should have to make some rule for our games that you can't rotate lanes or change up the meta as a strategy. I also don't know why, if it was a real concern, that folks couldn't just rotate to a different lane if there was a problem.

I wasn't saying there should be rules necessarily, or that we shouldn't do things outside of the meta. I'm just saying that the meta is what people know, so going beyond that is going to be pushing the comfort zone for some people. It also kind of makes trying to balance teams based on what role people are picking, not as effective... Just thinking out loud on what might have been causing problems.

on Aug 08, 2012

I really appreciate you being nice to my friend Pacov and everyone else for being cool to him when he'd make bad mistakes.  My hope was that he'd be playing on my team and when he ended up in a lane with you I was a little worried.  It is funny to hear that you maybe gave him a pep talk about being less passive?  In the game he and I played in after the in house games were over, he was tower diving like a madman and I wondered what had gotten into him.  

So... we have had some separate issues with the in house games.

 

- Team Stacking -  Has gotten a lot better.  Its a really hard thing to balance when people's skill level is all over the place, but whats worse is all these people (like my friend JK) who don't know a lot of champs or roles.

- Player Targeting -  Are these games supposed to be fun or not?  If your afraid of Vlad mopping your entire team with a certain champ, then ban that champ by all means.  If you know the other team has an inexperienced player who only plays one champ well, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I see people banning or picking that champ to screw him and his team over.  

- Lane Switching -  As far as lane switching and invasions go, I guess it gets tricky.  Newer players don't see a lot of invasions at their level and don't know how to cope as well.  Kinda sucks when an invasion is successful and the game is pretty much over at the start but I guess they gotta learn somehow and as long as its a balanced team, what the hell.  Lane switching... Peter has over a 1000 wins so he should know what zoning is and he should be able to handle a 2v1 but not so much I guess.  I haven't talked to Cow so I don't know if he was more upset that he thought he'd be owning with Fiddle against a champ without a stun or that he had to listen to Peter bitching about Yorick on bottom.  I don't know what the answer is to this...

- Pacov's Rage -  If no one else has told you yet, you were out of line and I understand how what you were saying would make someone want to leave the game.  Post the video if you want, but someone playing poorly is not an excuse to lay into him as hard as you did and some of the things you said when he came back were... unfortunate.  We all get frustrated, especially in some of these situations with wildly different skill levels but please try and maintain a little better when you're upset.

 

I don't know if there's a solution to these issues because the cutthroat and competitive attitudes of some just won't ever mix well with the relaxed and casual attitudes of people who just want to play some fun games with people they know on vent.

 

on Aug 08, 2012

yah - still need to check that vid to see if/how much of a douche I was being. 

Speaking of vids though - I'm uploading what is my current all time favorite now.  Hopefully you all find it as amusing as I do as its just a silly arse one. 

edit - oh, I was being quite a douche bag.  Certainly excessive.  I am uploading a clip of the action that set me off.  What put me over the top was his rq... after that, i bitched on and on and on and on and on and on and on.  Anyway, sorry you guys had to put up with my pissing and moaning - certainly not a fun atmosphere - especially when all the other guys on my team are easy going and kind. 

on Aug 08, 2012

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