ah - so this is what karl's been up to lately

http://i.imgur.com/yuiJzQi.gifv

re: GP - yah I think I'd need to put in a ton of reps to get gud.  I currently really like the champ.  Not great at hitting the triple barrel, but getting much better at catching folks and harassing heavily during early laning.  Most of the time I'm able to chunk folks down to 50% without losing any trades, which is pretty good (early game I'm talking here).  I'm missing some CS as a result though, so much room to improve.  I'm still absolute garbage with wasting my ult to try to help out on dumb plays.  I'm wildly inaccurate w/ it.  Still lucky enough for the occasional kill/assist, but I'm wasting it more often than not.  Also, I'm pretty good about having 45% cdr by 11min or so, which is kind of crazy in my experience, but pretty easy to do.  I'm not putting enough pressure on the map with how I'm playing currently.  Yesterday all I was really able to do was stop irelia from ever taking top turret after I took hers.  Managed to keep the turret up all game and apply some pressure in other spots, but there was never a safe setup for me heavily push solo deep into the enemy territory as irelia would just stay up there.    Having fun, but much to learn.

All copies of rust have been distributed, so if you want in on the fun, you'll have to buy it for yourself.  Karl - if you don't think you are interested in trying it out, maybe you could refund the game.  I think that's pretty easy to do.  You can still try it out for about 2 hours and then refund, but there's around a 2 week window where you can return it. That way I could give it to someone that is into it if you ain't.

Also, I freaking LOVE Rust.  The game is like a "one more turn" game to me... you know, where you lose track of time you are into it so much.  The depth of things you can do is great.  The fact that the servers go through regular wipes means you constantly refine how you do things and come up with the most efficient things to do.  And the modding is crazy.  I was watching a stream yesterday where they showed a new game mode called embankment or something like that.  Its a 15 v 15 map with a giant wall between teams that lasts for 20 minutes.  So, you get 20 min to construct a base, weapons, armor, etc, and then the wall drops and you fight to the death until no one on the other team remains alive.   What I really dig is that there is a good amount of people that are into these new game modes and playing them. 

Vanilla rust stays roughly the same each time - you start trying to survive and build a small temp base as quickly as you can.  You expand out and create a proper base when you can.  You go on runs to find blue prints which enable you to craft better weapons.  And you raid, looking to kill off folks for resources, etc.  I'm constantly learning things with the game, so there's def a bit of depth there.  Got boaz playing it last night.  Anyway, fun stuff.

edit - oh and rust has a big update coming out this Thursday that adds a level up system and a bunch of other things /end off topic rust ranting

What makes GP less able to handle 2v1 now than he used to. GP used to be the /original/ 2v1 way back in Season 1 when 2v1 lanes weren't even really a thing. Obviously, that was a huge amount of time ago, but his kit still has the same core traits (ranged last-hitting, even better waveclear, healing+CC drop, global ult). Is it that he is just a lot more dependent on levels than he used to be? Are Silver Serpents that important for his ult to be useful? Different items? Different scaling?

I'm not really sure - perhaps thunder has some thoughts.  The guy on the vid just said he can't hang w/ that.  Come to think of it, I don't think I've seen too many LCS games in awhile that put a solo laner vs 2 at the start ala old school.  What I'd expect to happen is that GP would get zoned off a wave pretty easily and end up unable to farm.  If you use the barrels to last hit early via a combo (if its 2v1, you'd prob have to combo 2 barrels so they didn't destroy your barrel as soon as its up).  As adc/support, I'd literally position in such a way to zone him far enough away that he couldn't do anything other than a 3 barrel combo.  I think he'd need the jungler.  He could farm under turret half way decently, but then its a matter of whether or not there would be a freeze to drown him our or a hard tower push.  idk.  I think there is a bit to his power spiking and farming successfully during a 1v1.  

Fair enough, Double Jungle is the generally-superior strategy, and i'll admit i forgot that is how LCS players do it now. That said, you might still get stuck in 2v1 lanes (or 1v0 with a freeze), which still plays to some of GPs strengths. And i bet incorrectly-rotated 2v1 matchups happen a lot more at our level of play.

Re: 2v1 Lanes

I'd agree with Pacov's reasoning.  Going from a lane with 0 or maybe 1 ranged opponents to a lane with at least 1 but probably 2 does not make for long lasting barrels. Gangplank also needs both levels and gold to be effective so getting frozen out of XP range is not good.  That's one of the reasons most GP OTP's prefer mid.  You can farm chickens and are never zoned from XP at least along with having less nightmare matchups.

Pre-Rework GP was a stat monster.  He had some of the highest base stats in the game if I remember correctly.  New GP isn't as naturally tough.  He's tough for a 'ranged' champ but still struggles against Panth/Hec tower dives.  The ideal of facing Ali/Lucian/Hec tower dives after struggling in a 2v1 lane all game sounds even less appealing.  He's got great wave clear when he has CDR and TF to keep himself safe from that nonsense but isn't going to hit that spike soon enough in 2v1 games.

tl;dr Heart Of Gold, Avarice Blade, and Philo Stone have been removed from the game which makes Gangplank sad.

1v2 isn't viable in Diamond+ because it is generally understood the jungler should show up as soon as the wave hits the tower for a 3v1 tower dive.  I think that even Plat players can consistently pull of 3v1 tower dives.  Once that dive happens the game is basically over for the top laner - they take the death and usually lose a few waves to the tower, which puts them way too far behind the curve.

People don't really double jungle any more since jungle camps don't share experience.  In LCS they might double jungle a camp to help out the jungler and to see how the opponent starts with lane assignments, but then the top goes with the ADC/support and 3v0 pushes a lane.  Double jungling isn't really a thing any more due to the XP sharing changes.

GP was played a lot competitively until recently, so there is nothing wrong with his kit.  He just lost his edge due to nerfs and he takes a bit too long to scale up.

Still rocking out the GP in ranked now.  Bryff and I actually got a win together with our dream lanes - kassadin mid/gp top. Side note - bryff and I were at a 100% loss rate w/ that combo for a wee bit.  

Today is magical Rust patch day.  The new XP system is going live, server wipes are going live, going to be some chaos.  Currently, I've got bryff/hunny/boaz trained on how to play the game (boaz is taking  bit to figure things out, but hunny/bryff picked up things super quick).  I'll likely be training LT from madcast tonight and karl if he wants in on the action.  Starting to get a little crew together which I think will add to the fun (I've been playing lone wolf most of my time in rust and you have to be really freaking sneaky to survive solo).  Anyway, I'm hoping to start playing around 7PM EST and folks can join me if they want. Just message on steam or in LOL (I'll have the client up) for the server info.  If you were on the fence about getting the game and want in, tonight a good time to try it out.  

I briefly considering playing a LOL game last night, but decided against /endpacovleagueupdate

rustupdate:

So, the new XP update went live and I joined a server shortly after a wipe.  This meant only everyone starts out at square 1, so I can get established and setup much more safely.  Hunny got on around 7PM and I built a bag for him so he could spawn at my base.  I kitted him out when he spawned so he'd have clothes/food/tools/weapons and we were off.  We secured the small base I was building before he joined me- eventually getting it all in stone, code locked and putting in a sheet metal door.  Your starter base in rust is always the quickest thing you can get setup just so you have some safety and security.  

Anyway, we very quickly start to notice people spawning near us and some folks that had already started building bases.  Ideally, you don't want people near you as you have to watch your back nonstop to make sure no one is creeping up on you.  Anyway, we spot a dude and take some shots at him.  He rushes us (dude's got a freaking rock - that's it).  He runs between hunny and me and I shoot hunny in the face and he dies.  Hue... I'm not very good at this game and he's not very good at life apparently.  The dude runs away - hunny respawns at our nearby base and loots his body so he actually gets all his stuff back.  We chased the one guy off anyway.  

After securing our base, we start stalking a few of the bases near us to see if we can pick anyone off and remove them from our area, but no luck.  We creep on a few houses but eventually leave.  We stockpile some wood/stone and setup to find a good location for a large base.  We chose a frozen mountain top which generally have lots of stone and also don't often have a lot of people as you need to have decent equipment to survive the weather. So, we get started and spend some time getting the outline of the big base together and locking down 1 secure room that will serve as our base within the base while we set it up.  

Bryff joins us around now.  We get him kitted out and continue to build the base up for a bit and help him level a little.  Now we are onto exploration and raiding.  We find a large satellite array and quickly notice 2 different bases very close to us.  We make some moves and get into position under 1 of the bases and begin to attempt a siege.  This time, there are 2 folks trying to defend their base against the 3 of us.  I build a tool box which secures us some building rights directly near them and start to build a platform to try to gain entry through a window they had built.  That doesn't work.  Then we start a shootout with them.  Bryff, for reasons unknown, apparently decided to stand in full view of them and gets shot repeatedly until he dies.  He respawns and runs back down from our mountain base and reclaims most of his belongings while hunny and I continue the siege.  I find a good vantage point and begin scoring a few very solid shots.  I believe I killed 1 of them, but they can respawn in the base, so that only does us a bit of good if we can kill both of them twice, more or less (spawn delay).  I end up taking some damage as does hunny and we decided to bugger off and end the siege.  Once we level up or get better, we'll have better equipment for sieging.  Anyway, we suck, but its been fun so far.  Will be playing more tonight.  

Anyone try out the new Ryze yet?  Any thoughts?  What about Taliyah with the w change?

I've been too busy being amazing at Overwatch.

I'm going to be gone for the weekend, but we should play some ranked 5's next week if people are around since that is back.

I'm down.  Hopefully the new champ select process hasn't killed our flexibility to the point where we can't fill out a team.  Being put into roles we're no longer good at is frustrating for the person playing outside of their comfort zone and the people watching their buddies feed.  So lemme know if I need to start relearning how to ADC or Support.

Cow: Better than the rest of us at all things no matter how long a break he takes from the game.  Probably wants Mid or maybe Top or Support.

Me: Plays GP who is getting some bans in pro Korean games and high elo elswhere.  I can play Irelia but she's banned a lot.  I'm planning to learn Trundle and Kayle Top and Annie Mid to get more rounded in anticipation to GP becoming a more popular pick/ban.  Can get back into playing Support or ADC if you guys need.

Karl: Best three roles are Jungle, Jungle, and more Jungle.  Followed by Leona who is maybe going to be permabanned after her rework.  Probably should Jungle.

Bryff: Top notch Irelia, but can go Mid and ADC or Support as well.  But if he can Irelia he's by far a better Top choice than anyone but Cow.

Hunny:  Playing Jungle and ADC currently.  Karl Jungle > Hunny Jungle.  Just my opinion.  And a fact as well.  So he's kinda our ADC if he plays right?

Pacov: The Wild Card!  Best at Support but hasn't played the role for a while.  Might want to go Top lane since he's been playing that role quite a bit and seems to love playing Illowee and... Eyebrow Girl..  Talijah!  Knew it would come to me.  So not sure what he's going to want to do or if he's got Naked And Afraid: Online out of his system enough to want to do Ranked 5's.

So that's my assessment.  Not sure if there will be enough interest or flexibility to get a competitive team together.  But if you think there is, let me know what I should be dialing in!

Anyone else been following the PhantomLord crap?

https://www.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/comments/4tluww/phantoml0rd_has_been_banned/

Always disliked this guy.  His facial hair always gave me douche chills.  He's been busy.  Hope the lil shite has to get a proper job now.

He used to be fun to watch, back when he actually played the game. I am not sure exactly what happened, but one day he went from being a cool league stream to only playing CS:GO, and then he went from at least playing that to just gambling on the skins of the game. I don't feel mad at the guy though, it honestly seems like the guy developed a real problem with gambling and needed help. 

It is unfortunate that it came to this, but maybe this will drive him to seek the help he needs, or he will waste the rest of his money on gambling, who knows.

From what I've seen, he's a scamming POS.  He adverts for gambling, cheats at gambling, makes videos a screams about winning said gambling.  Guy did a money grab and is unethical to the extreme.  Then even runs back to make a League vid to try to have a fallback as the CS crap explodes.  Having a gambling addiction is one thing... I don't really see that.  I don't really consider what he's been doing as gambling.  It's being a cheating shit.  For instance, watch this short vid of a series of bets he rigged after losing to make things interesting (eg knowing he was very favored to win).

He is a scamming pos, but I feel like he got that way because of his addiction. I am more sad than angry because the people that bet and lost money to it brought it upon themselves.