ff at 20 has a good post covering all the changes in 5.3 atm

http://www.surrenderat20.net/p/53-pbe-cycle.html

azir's getting taken down quite a few pegs imo. 

Still on that Diamond V struggle, I think its just a matter of grinding. I really wish I could of did well in my series would of been nice to try to climb diamond earlier in the season instead of struggling to get diamond v.

Finally won my first fantasy game in a blow out fashion. Hopefully my core team keeps putting up good numbers so I can catch back up to you guys (fuck you karl).

Also bjerg looks REAL good this season watched both TSM games this week and he was so on point (well there whole team is playing amazingly well).

all i really know is that I'm better than hunnybadger at fantasy lcs by randomly drafting people.  Crazy.

So - quick discussion.  AD fizz top. I haven't had to play against it.  Some streamer did it a few days ago and now folks are doing it quite a bit more. Karl had a game vs him as nasus - karl did not enjoy that.  Who has played as ad fizz top and had success? Who has played against him and had success?  I don't know the matchup other than to say he's a super freaking annoying bruiser.  I'm not sure if his kit change led to him being stronger, if he's actually stronger or if people just aren't used to him there.  Thoughts?  Mention if you have played against or if you are just crafting.  thx!

also... this is going to be a very interesting week in lcs. 

I've only seen AD jungle fizz, which is basically irritating CC and mobility regardless of the balance changes.  He's got great on hit damage, should work just fine although I'd rather do a hybrid build than straight AD and take nashor's and hextech.

I'd think jungle ad fizz would be quite a bit weaker than a top lane ad fizz, but I'm not 100%.  Jungle nid is a beast because her ganking power is super high  (provided you can hit a skill shot) even with so so itemization, but her laning ability was gimped a bit.  I'm guessing fiz jungle is just as good as it used to be (read:  not super great), but I think the top lane bruiser component is a bit stronger. 

I don't think you will see it replacing gnar, mao, renek, rumble, liss or the other current power picks top lane any time soon. I think all of these picks do well vs fizz except for maybe gnar early if you go super aggressive on him as fizz (but that kind of is early game gnar's weakness anyway). You might find the weird solo queue guy that mains fizz top lane but I wouldn't expect it to catch on at all.

And don't forget The Queen Of Top Lane who I'm guessing does pretty well in the matchup.

A champ with a such a high mechanical skill requirement isn't going to get the usual FotMonthers who like to take up playing people only when their nerfs have gone live on PBE.  Predicting a lot of LCS Sheep picking him up and dropping him real quick, while some people might put in the effort to learn Bruiser Fizz since he is fun to play and isn't yet another overpowered(ly boring) Bruiser/Tank Jungler that people have started playing Top.  Pretty sure he's only going to really appeal to the true Fizz enthusiasts out there even if he ends up being pretty good.  

patch 5.3 being deployed 2/11 (thurs) 1:30AM PST.

things of interest -

• swampmaster kennen has a texture update.  I know we've all been waiting for this
• camera perspective lock mode based on side of made - see options. 
• a non crap game history in the client directly.
• NEMESIS game mode - you pick the other teams champs
• some change to the friends list (hover over names and see)
• ahri nerf (less dmg more mana cost)
• azir nerf - crushed imo.  various things - bigest thing is solider aa range reduction imo
• gragas barrel speed buff - woo
• kassadin nerf - weaker early game
• sona - various minor buff to base stats
• zyra - QoL changes on her plants via AOE indicator, minor buffs?
• BLUE TRINKET as farsight - gain a 60 second visible ward when you cast it
• specter's cowl buffed to 150% regen vs 100% after dmg taken

other stuffs .... nemesis will be fun anyway.

Top lane Fizz isn't really that good I think.  I was just having problems as Nasus because he seems to counter the crap out of Nasus early.  Nasus's animations are too slow, so he can troll pole around Q.  It is not fun.

Woo ahri nerfs!

Nemesis should be fun for a few games until it becomes poppy, urgot, taric, zac, trundle every single game.

exactly, i 100% foresee Fizz top as more of a counterpick to Gnar.

Not only was the matchup not a problem for old AP-Fizz (the only time i really took him top), he's even easier for AD Fizz. In LCS, he was being used toplane specifically against Gnar as well. Note that in limited history of top-lane in LCS, he was built pretty tanky (TF, Frozen Heart, Hexdrinker) rather than pure damage.

That said, Jungle Fizz might have some other advantages over Top Fizz in SoloQ. Top Fizz will struggle against most meta champs (Rumble, Irelia, Renekton...). Jungle Fizz gets to farm and peace and his clear isn't completely awful. The past two seasons, junglers are often squishy and fit the "fighter" archetype more often than the "bruiser" or "tank" archetypes.

So putting a squishy champ who can farm in peace and have reasonably safe item thresholds is somewhat appealing. Compared to a pretty-squishy toplaner that can ballsnow really hard if things don't go well.

That said, i don't think that Gunblade > TF > Zhonya is an item build you'll be able to afford on Jungle Fizz. So you'll have to figure out some cheaper, gold efficient builds (Devourer + BotRK + Wits End, perhaps).

You had better not be giving people poppy.  Poppy will be a monster - the other team won't be good enough to keep her down in her weak early game, so she gets to her out of control late game.

I think we'll see some good variation, though.  Full support comp, etc.  Lots of potential options anyway.  It will probably devolve to what you said, though...

the ahri nerfs seemed pretty minor btw.  Tones her down a bit, but I think she's probably still on the strong side.

re: fizz - I'm thinking the jungle itemization options will hurt him a bit and without the gold of a solo lane, ouch. Old AP jungle fizz was fun as long as you snowballed, ofc.  AD bruiser fizz as a jungler doesn't strike me as good/worthwhile and not enough dough to get to that level easily... unless you snowball ofc.