Haven't seen swan in a little bit as well... where you at?

So, I got a late start and only got a few games in.  Did mystery gift swap with karl.  Got super fancy rumble - he got crap, so I gave him another - also crap.  Found out I suck with rumble (kinda already knew that). 

I discovered a sad truth about team builder. You can run pretty much ANYONE as support because its such a needed role. Which is good... and bad.  No one really blinks an eye when you run w/e.  But, ofc, people will likely complain up a storm if things don't go well.  So, poppy pacov is up to trying w/e he feels like trying in TB mode when I'm running solo.  Give it a go sometime if you like. 

That's also a pretty big downside with tb now, though.  I'd rather not wait 5+ minutes to get a normal support and it seems like quite a few people are in the same boat.

I tried a few more things out w/ my nasus build.  My "stable" jung nasus is like 15/12/3 or something.  Tried 21/9/0.  Didn't dig it.  Went back to the "stable."  switched to TP/smite.  That works.  Hate having to take smite, but its needed at least for early/mid. 

I get home usually right after you get off for the night... my most common schedule for work is 3pm-11pm your time.  So by the time i get home and online a such it's midnight for you.  Today is my saturday... see you tonight!

I mystery gifted swan yesterday and he got super galaxy rumble as well.  Crazy.  Anyway, got to get in some games with him.  Good stuff.  Played in a MC in house as well.  Got carried by sy and push.  My nasus was.... well... what my nasus is.  Not super useful but somewhat fun.  He's a lot more fun to play with ghost/smite in my opinion.  Chasing after people with his ult up and stacked out cane is fun - provided you can catch them.  Ghost + whither means you are going to catch them through most cc's. 

I think what I'm really enjoying is the stack mini game - not just nasus, but ff junglers.  I sense my crappy trynd jungler reappearing in a team builder near you.  Maybe I could go back to udyr ff jungler, but I found that to be so much weaker with the ff nerf.  Yi and trynd are probably the strongest ff junglers atm imo (am I forgetting someone?).  Bleh - hopefully I'll get back into proper junglers, but my nunu is already up to speed. 

mystery gifts so far have been aweful for me. Pacov managed to gift me a sion skin. I was able to gift swan frost butt irelia atleast

yah - karl got crap also.  Ah well. Hope your date went well the other night.

I will be around for ranked 5's tonight

Ideally I think our current best team in positions would look like this:

1. Bryff top
2. Cow/dan mid
3. Karl/sandman jungle
4. Dan/sandman adc
5. Pacov support

So if it is possible please be on tonight at 7-8pm.

I will shoutcast the game(s)

Dan hasn't been around for a bit... hopefully he will be on tonight.

ooo - would have enjoyed swan shoutcasting.  You are streaming things or crazy, though?

Didn't get to play much on NA tonight.  Had some weird issue on my side and then NA exploded (my desktop crashed a few times... was strange).  Think its related to this new client overlay though... even tho that is also weird.

I'm over on LAN putzing about in team builder atm.

Hey cow - just so you know, I didn't see your post until about 9:30PM.  In hindsight, did not look we had enough peeps, but I wouldn't have blown you off like I did ("hey I'm just getting on and I want to try something out then ready to play in 30 min").  I don't feel a strong holy crap I've got to play in ranked games anytime folks appear, but I would have told you I'm up for a game if I had seen your post.  Just an FYI.

NA was DDoS'd tonight.  We probably would have tried to do some ranked, but we couldn't since there were massive login problems for everybody.

I should be around for ranked or unranked games tonight unless League is down again.

Yeah, I'd definitely say that Ghost would be the better play from what I experienced.  The only thing that saved you from dying during that one telegank was that I panicked and thought it was Sy coming down to kill us all.  Had I realized that it was an early game jungle Nasus... 

It was a fun game but I truly regret not giving DanKnee a taste of his own medicine!

"Wow.  How did you lose your lane against Wu?  Fizz should be his counter... so weird.  Were you camped or something?"

Yeah Swan my sched is pretty packed. ~20 hours of work a week plus 15 hours of class a week, then whatever left for studying. Fortunately it's only one week into the semester and I have yet to be bombarded with assignments/projects, if you guys are looking to do ranked tonight I'll be avail. Have festivities to attend this weekend and will probably pack in more studying.

LOL. Ouch Thunder, just read that comment after my response to Swan.

I was so out of it that night, I joined cause Turtle was pestering me to.  

At one point of the game I zoned out so much that I was tanking turret without a minion wave because wu E'd then ulti'd me. I noticed after I died, RIP.

summary of night - was in the mood for ranked.  Played 1 and was nunu.  Their jungler was xin and played very well.  Kept me on my toes and tried to counter jungle me (side note - my ryze top went smite/tp... so... you know).  Anyway, I didn't do poorly, but under performed and felt very pressured by xin.  My main issue was feeling like I need to aid top lane due to the dumb no flash bullseye he painted on himself.  Anyway, my mid lane carried us to victory.  Felt like a loss but we stayed in it. Pretty mediocre game for me though.

Got invited to a non ranked right after that.  NA goes down to another ddos. I jump over to LAN and play team builder. Nearly get 2 penta kills running yi. Not really difficult honestly (low level stuffs).  Trying to level the account as quickly as possible, though.  Level 16 atm.  Seems like I'm getting a lot of reps on LAN lately due to attacks though.

Anyway, felt like my jungle play was off and I'm going to go back to putting in reps on more practical junglers on NA.

Quick rambling... re: "practical junglers" - I was thinking today - hmm.. would like to play volibear.  But - cannot in most comps.  Which kind of blows.  Stonewall was talking about how rengar is pretty much a good pantheon. Panth is nice early/mid and generally poo late.  Rengar just lacks the early gank power and becomes stronger as the game goes on - including the ability to consistently get at a carry (while panth can just try with his ult).  If you take ult strength, I think rango has it hands down.  Anyway, the strength in the ult is in the approach.  Panth has the range, but you have more than enough time to respond in most cases.  Rango can just go omgfckingbbq and take a shot with a higher success rate. Realistically, panth needs his ult and flash to get on a carry. Rango needs ult. Personally, I think rango is a better pick up if I've got 1 person with an equal skill cap on both champs.  w/e tho - panth is fun to play ofc

So, back to the whole voil thing.  Here's what I think - I think for jungle champions, there needs to be a big trade off before champs with immediate gap closers and champs with gap closers.  Voli presses q and moves quickly to an enemy champ.  Wukong presses q and immediately hits an enemy champ. Voli's an inferior pick as a jungler due to his kit.  Voli is a bad pick if you have anyone that can slow or hard cc.  Other junglers can bypass those slows or hard cc through mobility, etc ( a kha hop, a panth hop stun, etc).  Voli gets slows and he can't do any dmg.  Panth gets slowed and he can still hop based on distance etc.  Any jungler that is blown up by a slow is kind of smeh imo ( a nunu snowball or lulu glitterlance means no gank will succeed with voli bear unless you flash).  I think things like that remove champs from being a viable pick at higher levels of play.   That soft cc weakness is only increased when team fights occur.   Voli is really the worst with this as he can do literally zero dmg with his ult or anything if he can't get close.  1 slow and no dmg - just zoning potential. 

Summary of thought is that junglers that are vulnerable to soft cc in the team fight stage and on ganks are not really viable.  I'd go a step further and add that any champ that has a gap closer that bypasses soft cc should have weaknesses providing a tradeoff.  Thoughts on either comments?