Sounds like people are starting to think raka is OP based on bans apparently.  Not sure.  I am sure that having a ww on your team + a raka nearby is bad news for enemy team.  One game last night I was saving people left and right with heals and ults. 

GP ult change on pbe - here's what it does.  7 total hits per person over time if you stay in it for the duration. Lasts like 5-7 seconds.  I think the AOE slow starts immediately for anyone in the AOE.  Size seems about the same.  Def an improvement for him.

pfft... here are the notes:

Gangplank

• Cannon Barrage (R) now deals equal damage over the entire area in waves instead of random spots with cannon balls.
• Cannon Barrage (R) duration now 7 seconds from 6.
• Cannon Barrage (R) cooldown now 125/110/95 from 120/115/110
• Cannon Barrage (R) now listed a damge per second instead of flat damage per cannon ball.

Oh - and akali change sounds interesting and perhaps strong - no more def stat bonus in her shroud.  Instead, she gets a crazy MS boost that decays as soon she becomes visibile - 60% to 100% MS boost in shroud at max

pretty sure the Akali shroud change is tended to be a nerf. (maybe the actual numbers are too high and it ends up being a buff, but think it's supposed to be a nerf).

Right now Akali is surprisingly resilient while in her shroud. It's a huge teamfight defensive buff, even against a pinkward, because it's so much defensive stats on a champion who gets Spellvamp as a passive. If the enemy doesn't bring a pink and instead brings a lot of AoE, the shroud is one of her tools to survive. It's also a really big deal in the 1v1 Assassin matchups; Akali tends to win pretty convincingly against most assassins after first shop when she comes back to lane with 3 ult charges. 

MS boosts are really not that useful on a champ with spammable gap closers. Her shroud also has a brief cast time, which means she has 0 MS for ~1/10th of a second. The only situation the new shroud is way better is if you're chasing someone after a clean teamfight, or if you're collapsing on a kill in the river. If you use shroud to catch up and don't get the kill quickly, there's the chance you'll run into 3/4 champs with no shroud.

So both new "Best Cases" are situational: Either you use it to pursue and pick up a kill really quick and hope the enemy team isn't behind your target in a bush, or you use it to chase and clean up after an already successful teamfight. (which might not be so successful without your defensive stats).

It's a nerf, sure - but its also a buff for solo play/escapes after locking down a kill.  Big speed buff while you are in the shroud a 1 sec decay while running out if it means you should more chances to escape if needed.  I think that fits from an assassin ninja concept at least.  Agree its a nerf overall. 

so - I played sion as jungler in 2 games on pbe.  HOLY SPACE SPACE SPACE CRAP.  1st - this guy is really, really strong. I actually think he can be a beast in top lane, but I'm not sure if that's the best place.  He'd also be pretty freaking sick in a kill lane bot. 

Anyway, think about this.  Imagine any split pusher that just reached a wave. Well, you clear the wave, then move to the next wave provided it seems safe.  Sion can clear 2 waves before they even hit your creep wave in about 6-7 seconds.  Now, imagine the map pressure created by a sion jungling or going top with tp.  Even if you are absolute shit you cannot ignore someone taking out 2 creep waves.  Like - he can be a suicide bomb even.  Tp, ult, AA turret.  Unstoppable.  If you build him even going straight ad, all you have to do is time things out and you can send him on a split suicide mission and he will either get a turret or weaken in a ton.  Toss in his revive passive and well.. poof.  It's instant map control.  Want to baron?  Super.  Pink it, send sion to the other side of the map with tp, have him ult and then take baron while the enemy team is like wtf.

Right now he's super fun and satisfying to play, but I really think he's someone that weak players could very easily utilize to win a game.

I'll take it a step further.  Take top lane sion.  Let's say you know a bit about top and are a smeh sion.  You run tp.  You can literally tp to lane after level 6 and destroy 2 waves with your ult to proxy.  Or you can even use it defensively and ult away to safety (eg hard push and proxy under tower, then ult to get away if 2 come to you.  The only way to stop his ult is to get hit by it (cc does not work) or if you hit a wall or turret with it (does happen, but prob not much at all once folks are used to). 

Also, its an ult that pretty much guarantees you end up behind the enemy champ even if you miss him.  I could see you easily running smite/exh on him. 

Anyway, if he's released as he is today, well... better ban eh.

Oh and specifically - as jungler - I felt like he was actually really strong with the AD dmg jungle item.  He's less powerful early/mid with the tank jungle item, but I think that might be best as he turns into super tank due to passive on w. 

Did some team builder today and met a nice group of peeps.  1 guy seems to really like playing wukong mid.  Anyway, I decided I wanted to work on my thresh game and I did really well with the adc I met, so we duo'd some ranked.  2/0.  Gold 1 75 LP. Had a 2/0/20 game as janna and did a really good job.  Was going to make some comment about racing to beat karl to Plat... then saw karl had a rough day in ranked.    Sorry bro. 

Missed out on playing w/ swan as I wanted to roll with ranked.  Hope to catch you again soon. 

Oh - I picked up destiny on Ps4.  Really dig it.  Lots of fun so far and its really well done.  Anyone else have destiny? 

Yeah, I started 1-0 in promo series.  Went 0-3 today.

Game 1, every lane loses lanes without any help from their jungler.  I manage to pull things back so we might have a chance to win even though we are still behind, but the other team is throwing.  Then one of ours dc.  They take baron and push down the middle for the win.

Game 2, top and bot have bad matchups but manage to kind of keep it together.  Mid feeds badly.  But we might have a chance except our top loses his mind after we fall down a bit (whining about mid feed) and decides to intentionally feed even though we really werent down by much and hadn't even lost any 2nd towers yet.

Game 3, we were winning but our top kept dcing and was also bad.  After about his 4th dc it just hurt us too much since his lane was pretty out of control.  Eventually he dc'd at a bad time and we lose our head and lose the game.

So yeah, 2 dc games and an intentional feeder.  Probably could have gone 2-1 if it wasn't for that stuff, 1-2 at the very worst.

ugh - sorry to hear that.  Well, hopefully its just 2 games to get back into your promo matches again. Guessing I'll get boned at 75lp and have to play 2 games to hit as well.  Anyway, good luck tomorrow if you decide to give it a go again.  rough night, no doubt... getting trolled + dcs... woo...

NOT streaming some ranked duo queue.

Well, I think I'm done with ranked solo in LoL.

I just got demoted due to a bug again.

So I've lost 8 in a row.  4 of them had disconnects that substantially affected my team losing, 2 had people on my team intentionally throwing (after stating they would intentionally throw), and 2 had just had ordinary really really bad play on my team.  So thats fun - I don't know why I seem to get really really really bad luck in solo queue, but it seems to happen to me.

But thats not the bug.  The bug is that my last game my screen showed that I was at 10lp before the game.  I lost the game (Sivir got upset at level 1, said she was going to throw, spent  much of the game just walking into the enemy team on purpose), so I get demoted despite the fact that I was at 10lp before the game?  Oh, and it said that I got demoted for INACTIVITY!  And there is a red triangle in my league standing screen that is an Inactivity Notification saying that I got demoted to Gold I in solo queue (which happened a long time ago) due to inactivity.

Karl - might be time to open a support ticket.  This is the 2nd instance you've cited where goofy shite is happening with demotions for you.  Last time you said you were demoted like 10 days in advance. If it were me, I'd take the time to open a ticket.  If nothing came of that and I was still fired up, I'd appeal to reddit and see if I can't get some traction there. If you really think there's some BS going on, I'd really push for some resolution.  Let me know if you need any info on how to open a ticket, etc. 

All of that said, you've been on a really annoying, obviously super frustrating losing streak.  Maybe take a break from LoL or just get into whatever sounds fun to you in LoL.  Too much stress and frustration = no fun had = not worth it.  Try to do something that's fun for you bro and just relax a little if you can.  Sorry its been so rough lately though.  :/

On an unrelated note, an updated SR VU mod was released that works on the current version of LoL 4.17 - get it here if interested:  http://yurixyworks.com/2014/06/27/play-in-new-summoners-rift-on-your-live-server/

I just played 1 game with it and it seems to be working fine. 

Meh, I don't actually really care about ranked solo queue much or I'd play it more.  Its frustrating when you lose 6 of 8 due to stuff like feeders and dc's, but whatever.  I don't really care enough to play enough games to have the stats even out.  I also don't really care enough to open support tickets on it, although I might have to if it keeps being goofy just to keep the weird stuff from happening.

I did finally win a game.  It had nothing to do with me since I was playing super terrible since I was way too tired.  I finally had better players though, so I won.

haven't rambled in a bit and as my mind is going in several directions, here goes...

Currently sitting on a 60% win rate in ranked for past 20 games playing solo  and a 65% win rate when I duo ranked out of the past 20 games.  Prior to meeting this fella I met last week (dxTrick), my ranked goal was to either get yasuo and play him mid anytime he's up and I can get him or try to play as ADC.  Goal = be able to carry in ranked in my team is rot - so having a role or champ that can do that is key. 

Anyway, last week I was doing some team builder and came across this dxTrick fella.  I was choosing to play support in team builder because I wanted to put in some reps on my thresh play with a focus on vision control + positioning to get teammates out of places quickly via lantern + mobo boots.  Anyway, I have a few games where I'm doing great and lock down a bunch of great hooks - and this fella dx, my adc, is really in sync with me.  Uses the lantern exactly how he should, follows plays excellently, and doesn't make too many mistakes (we all do, ofc).  Anyway, we play a bit together and I'm just rolling along playing my mainstream supports - thresh/leona/braum/janna.  Side note - not really digging braum as much anymore.  I find leona is a much better pick in most situations + reliable cc vs holy crap someone AA the person I've proc'd cc. 

Long story short, we do the team builder games, then go off to ranked and crush it pretty easily.  Played another ranked w/ him yesterday and got a win, but the guy has comcast, so net issues (eg we only played the 1 game and he was dc'd like 14 min).  Thankfully, we lost one guy on our team and the other team lost 1 guy as well, so we were still able to get a win. Also, holy crap do I like having leona on the team vs a kat.  That's probably what my braum comment is mostly about... anywho...

So, I'm in my promo series to plat.  I'm likely going to pick and choose my games and try to duo through them to hopefully avoid having to replay the series now that time is getting short.  The guy I'm playing with is only like gold III, so I'll probably play a bit more ranked if I get promoted to try to help him hit plat this season. 

Another rambling post soonish....

on and on I go...

so, I'm all geared up for ranked last night, but my bud has those net issues I mentioned, so I decided to do some team builder so I can play w/e role I want.  I go for adc and end up with a support janna (me = corks).  Now, my corki is one of my weaker adcs (best prob cait/lucy/trist).  Anyway, I get this goof support and we're playing into a dumb lane (brand+graves or something like that).  Anyway, its certainly a stretch to say that I played well, but my support was weak and did very little that approached being useful.  I'd move up to trade/farm while pushed under my tower - janna would shield the tower.  I'd try to freeze the lane, janna would try to push the lane putting me in a very bad position and keeping me from being able to farm.  Also, guy clearly didn't give a fug and just wanted to do w/e he wanted to do (eg choose a support in team builder but did not want to play support or had no idea how to do so). 

So, I have a lane where I can't get cs because the enemy team can zone me very easily while my support stays behind me.  And if the wave pushes to tower, I lose more cs because my support aa's and shields the turret or herself under turret.  In short, I get put into a situation where I really can't do much of anything.  I figure fine, I'm boned.  My turret gets taken, I freeze and slow farm... janna comes to my lane and pushes the wave so I can't even do that for long.  I was super happy when the game ended as it was pretty freaking miserable.  Didn't report the janna because maybe she was trolling, but it just seemed like she was quite awful and had no idea how to support. 

I said all of that to whinge a bit, but also to point out how much I love it when I get a good support.  How great is it to have vision where you need it and have someone competently zoning, shielding, cc'ing, w/e needed.  It is a real treat and makes playing adc so much more fun and easy.  The game after the one I went on to describe had bainick from MadCast running support for me (him morg; me corks).  Night and day difference (weak bot lane as well to be fair).  He zoned like a boss, I'm csing well and getting poke down as appropriate.  Anyway, was so nice to go from having a tormentor support to having an actual support. 

Last, rammus's win rate is crazy high in ranked solo queue at the plat/gold lv at least for the past week.  58% w/r. 

hurm... can't log in to NA for some reason... can get in LAN.  Getting to login screen and its immediately saying it can't connect and"retries" several times... something seems to be blocking it on my side.. no idea.