Can't believe you're still playing lol, I got so bored of it back before Azir was released.

shen getting some nice buffs on pbe

Shen

• Base Magic Resist increased to 32.1 from 30
• Magic Resist Per Level increased to 1.25 from 0
• Ki Strike (Passive) cooldown lowered to 9/8/7 at levels 1/7/13 from 9 at all levels. 
• Shadow Dash (E) energy cost reduced to 100/95/90/85/80 from 100 at all ranks.

Anyone else get to spend some time playing ekko yet?  I'm really enjoying the playstyle.  A few reasons why - his e (this is a dash to anywhere, followed by a dash as long as you click on a target in range (must be enemy - works on enemy wards though).  My absolute favorite thing with this is being able to quickly reposition to avoid dmg or position for a combo.  I found it fairly intuitive to use and only took a few games to a really good handle on it.

I like the q as well - folks still aren't used to it, ofc, but I think its going to be fairly easy to utilize for poke.  It also is incredibly good for wave clearing (and satisfying at that) - his passive + w passive make it even easier as you proc your 3rd hit on the creeps to easily pop them, even with low dmg output. 

His w is quite a bit less satisfying in mid, but still very nice vs melees out of top.  In mid, you can at least ensure that you can place it and get a shield for it, but I found that it was pretty easy for the enemy to avoid.  The ideal usage is either using it to intiiate a fight (lower odds of success, but if you are successful, the dmg output is very, very high) or tossing it up during a fight which forces the enemy to reposition or pay the price.  It just seemed way to easy to avoid unless things are going crazy (which is fair because its a shield and a 2.25 sec stun).  But, its easiest to land if folks are in melee range... which makes it so much nicer to use in top vs melee. 

I tried him in several roles/functions.  Not a fan of him as a jungler, though it is somewhat doable.  Mid as straight ap is strong, but requires a higher skill cap imo. I also really liked him as a straight bruiser tank out of top.  His kit is a cc machine.  His q is a slow that is easiest to proc if he's in close combat - if he takes too much of a pounding he can ult out or just ult to do added dmg/regen.  Up close and personal when things get crazy, his w is super useful.  He becomes a lowish dmg output beast that slows and stuns (again 2.25 sec stun or so...) it's like bard's ult if it wasn't garbage (eg enemy team stunned, you and your team  can go wail on them).  I played him a s bruiser with frozen gauntlet - very nice as he's melee and you get the strong slow... plus you built in slow... plus your gap closer so you can stay with anyone... plus your stun... CC BEAST. 

I played vs him a few games in mid. Reminds me of diana, yasou, zed. He is REALLY bad vs Chogath but works well vs any farm champion (weakish farm but easy to kill squishy immobile mids). He is safer than talon, katarina and will see play and fill the same role as zed, diana, fizz, ahri, yasou. I predict him being as good as if not better than zed is currently. His wave clear is stupid easy and safe once you have any sort of AP (like zed).

To some up my thoughts of Ekko's future:

He is an OP safe AP assassin. Prepare your body's in a few weeks he will take solo queue by the balls and get nerfed probably half way through July.

Also, when you make good plays you feel like pretty awesome.  I'm far from good with him, but had a few f yeah moments in each game w/ him. 

Anywho... onto non ekko stuff.  I've been getting a little back into shaco lately and have been watching more than a few streams, vids, and setups for him.  He's like a champion I think you could play thousands of games as.  Not because he's exceedingly op or anything, but moreso that so much more thought needs to go into playing him than other champs imo. Right now, there is more risk in playing non cinderhulk junglers, so there's already a strike against him.  And the team is also down a tank.  Also, generally, a strike against.  But the options you have with a jungler that does not need a leash go way up.  BUT.. so does the risk.  Anyway, I really like the versatility he provides.. and he's easily my fav champ to gank with as you can bypass wards and 3 sec invisib is a lot. 

Folks seem to rush tiamat... sometimes even over finishing the 1st jungle item tier.  Most tend to finish the 1st jungle item tier and then will often completely skip fully upgrading the jungle time in favor on getting tiamat + other items done.  There are also decent starts to do that don't require a leash and keep you safe from the enemy team trying to pop your boxes as well. 

Plat+ games have Shaco as a 53.5 percent win jungler.  So he's more than a viable pick in the Cinderhulk Meta I'd think, since he's got a high win rate right now and has been positive the last five patches at least.

Considering how much you love to split push, I'm kinda wondering why you ever stopped playing him.

I think the greedier style junglers and top laners fit pacov's playstyle well. The go to split pushing when I don't know what else to do syndrom (its not necessarily a bad thing unless you are doing it on support). So playing shaco, yi, fiora, tryndamere, jax, nasus (or other various people that can get out of 3v1's by escaping or going 1 for 1 when they die) might be the right thing to do. There are mid laners that do well with this idea tool; Zed and Ekko specifically.

man... the worst thing about these scripts going around and info being posted... every game you think you are against a scripter if you notice patterns.  Here's a link to an older vid with ziggs scripts I believe I encountered tonight in an aram.  

Here's a vid that explains how the scripts work, etc...

yup - even the vid I linked pointed to an awful player.  And everyone I've seen or perceived scripting was quite, quite awful.  I just get annoyed because I actually sit and think about it a bit if I see repetitive patterns or the more common script where folks ult and just happen to catch you right as you are about to spawn at base.  

Anyway, anyone else catch the games today?  So far I've only watched C9 vs TSM.  Was a really good game though.

Did you see the one about the rager bronze guy scripting Katarina? How he just wanted to "relax" and play rank, make people rage with scripts. He went from Bronze (low Silver?) to Plat in like 2 week, so scripts are very effective, even if you are "awful". 

Remember that there are two forms of skill: micro and macro. All players have better relative micro OR macro compared to other players of their "true" skill. If you have both, that means that you're just ... not at your true skill. Scripters, by definition are "awful" players from a decision-making point of view, because their mechanics suddenly get boosted to low diamond level.

yah that's the 2nd vid posted above.  The thing I look for with scripters in particular are very consistent mechanical things.  For instance, a few weeks back I was up against a jinx adc.  There was a pattern I kept seeing repeated over and over with how she used her mines - like the exact split second she cast her zap (if was close range ish), she'd toss mines immediately.  She repeated this precisely several times.  Mostly stuff like that that comes off as weird and not so much omg a scripter has broken me. 

Anyway, mixed thoughts about more and more vids coming out advertisting this crap though.  I don't think folks really understand just how easy it is to ddos a game as it is.  

You don't need to script to do that.  Play Jinx.  Turn Range Indicator Quickcast on for W and E.  Hold down W and E.  Let the keys up at the same time. Cast both at the exact same time.

What Hedgie was trying to explain which I'm not sure you understood was that the scripters you run into are Bronze players that have used programs to gain an unfair advantage to get to your MMR.  That's why you have this impression that all scripters don't know how to play the game.  You mostly see the ones that have poor understanding of strategy, don't build well, have bad positioning, etc.

Let's say you started scripting to get to Diamond.  Once you got to Diamond, if that was the maximum that scripting allowed you to achieve, the players there would have a similar impression of you that you have of the scripters you meet right now at Platinum V.  And it wouldn't be a big deal because they would be able to outplay you enough that you lose as much as you won so they wouldn't get too frustrated.  You would stay at that level until your eventual ban or you got bored of having a computer program play the game for you.

The problem would be for the players in Platinum V that you beat who didn't have a chance against another Platinum player who had just started using scripts.

Hopefully you keep facing the Bronze scripters.  Playing against a scripter who has an equal skill in the non mechanical aspects of this game is extremely frustrating experience.

OK - so apparently there was some sort of discussion re: it sucking to be against someone that is good at the game that scripts vs someone that is trash that scripts.  And that's obviously not a logical conclusion or it sounded like I didn't understand that I guess?  

To recap the whole scripting thing, I personally think all scripters (low elo and high - god bless), are crap.  Just for the whole cheating side of things.  Those vids just highlight some of the things folks actually can script, so I think its good general knowledge.  And while its not a good thing, I also think folks are more likely to believe scripting is occurring more frequently than it is after vids like these circulate.  

I think its interesting that detection seems to rely primarily on visual evidence due to the way the program is hooking into memory and apparently is not something that rito can detect as such.  Also interesting that the majority of the folks banned for using these programs all came from a dump of user names that purchased the programs for scripting some time back.  We know that riot actually works with folks within the scripting community to as well.  AFAIK, there just isn't a way of directly detecting usage of these latest programs.  Kind of a bummer - as I think we all agree that we'd prefer to win a game that we deserve to, etc.  

K - so any additional thoughts on ekko?  I currently have a love/hate thing going w/ him.  He's fun to play, but my last few games ended up with a mid on my team against a mid ekko and them getting completely steamrolled.  Unfortunately, if I want to play team builder, there seems to currently be no way of avoiding him (no bans and folks want to play him - it happens).  I can tell you its not fun to be ali support vs a fed ass ekko.  Anyway, I think ekko alone is going to force me back into playing normals and ranked games now -which is cool.  I even had a master tier yasuo vs an ekko unranked fella yesterday that completely steamrolled yas.  bleh.