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Will operation difficulty become another feature of League of Legends?

Dec31

After getting the information that the new champion will be famous for its operation difficulty, we review some champions that join League of Legends before S4. We find they are difficult to operate to some extent while the old champions are easy to get started and master. Do you think it’s good or bad? Will operation difficulty become another feature of League of Legends?

We can see clearly from recent data of Yasuo that his popularity is not high on tiers below Diamond. On Challenger tier, his win rate is the highest while the popularity is actually the lowest among all tiers. This proves that Yasuo requires highly on operation.
And some newly launched champions, such as Jinx, Zed, Zyra, and even Thresh and Nami, either require highly on prejudgment or individual operation level. And some old champions who have existed since the start of League of Legends such as Ashe, Annie and Garen are easy to get started.
After we get familiar with simple and easy game mode of League of Legends, champions Riot launched have excellent performance in pro tournaments, but we can hardly see such scenes in daily gaming activities. Thus I don’t think it will draw new players for League of legends to just improve the operation difficulty of new champions.

Tag: S4,Yasuo,Jinx, Zed, Zyra,Thresh,Nami 

The new champion will be hard to play

Dec28

Riot lead designer Morello recently revealed something about the new champion in the forum, “The next AP champion will be quite hard to play. He overturns the difficulty set for AP, and doesn’t merely focus on simple position and prejudgment.” Besides, it’s said that the champion is from Void, and has something to do with Thresh.



Initial setting for the new champion:

Passive: Ignore unit collision, and the magic penetration of the champion will be increased according to the health he/she loses.

 Skill 1: Release a beam of shock wave, and it will spread and form a wall and leave the Void Wall lasting for one second at the end of the spell range or when you cast it next time. All units touching the wall will be stunned for a short period.

Skill 2: Throw a chain in the straight line direction, damaging all units hit by the chain and adding a slow effect. The closer the unit is to the chain, the more obvious slow effect he will receive. When the chain reaches its range, it will be pinned to the ground for a short period during which the champion can move. The chain will stop its motion after hitting Dream of the Wall, pinning and extending the duration of the wall. Skill 2 can be activated again, and you can use the chain to pull yourself to the wall.

Skill 3: Take the champion as the center, and he/she pulls the chain, knocking back enemy units in a small scale and damaging them. If the chain has been pinned to the ground, the attack area will be the round area with the champion as the center and the pinning location of the chain as the radius. If the chain is pinned to the wall, it will move along with the wall, all enemy units touching the wall will be stunned again.
　
The designer notes that the skill is no easy to cast, and position matters a lot to the skill. If you are in a different location, your attack area will be quite different. Besides, the chain can be pinned to any location on the wall, namely, if you pin the chain to any end of the wall, and your chain and the wall form a straight line during the duration of the wall, the attack area will be quite huge – the length of the chain + the length of the wall. Thus you can cast the control in a wide area.

 Skill 4: Cast his/her power of void to a large area near him/her, and create the void area, damaging all units touching power of void. The closer the enemy is to the champion, the more damage he will receive. The champion can deal more damage when he/she stands in the area.

The champion will be another famous AP for difficult operation after Syndra and Zed if he/she will launch as planned. From the current skills we can see that his/her control is quite unsteady, and it’s activation mechanism is similar to that of Leblanc and Syndra while the skill to output damage is a little bit similar to that of Zed. 

 Tag: New Champion, Morello, S4

Vi and Caitlyn Special Interactions

Dec19

Vi has several secret interactions with Caitlyn.

 Allied Caitlyn:

 Each gains the cosmetic buff, “On The Case: Piltover’s Finest”.
Each gains +1 movement speed while near one another.
Each gains +1 bonus gold if both of them participate in a kill.
Three unique phrases in response to an allied Ace in the Hole.

 Enemy Caitlyn:

 If Vi taunts while near an enemy Caitlyn, she will perform one of two special taunts. Doing so gives a cosmetic debuff to Caitlyn called “Agitated: How Agitating”, which remains until Caitlyn damages Vi or Caitlyn dies.
Three unique phrases in response to an enemy Ace in the Hole which hits Vi, but does not kill her.

League of Legends: Yasuo the Unforgiven Announced!

Dec19

The latest champ for League of Legends has been announced, and he’s gotta go fast dammit. Yasuo the Unforgiven has many tricks up his sleeve, as can be evidenced in the official Riot Reveal. What is a sword without a sheath?

Yasuo, the Unforgiven is an attack damage mid laner and a former member of an Ionian martial school. This humble swordsman has mastered a legendary wind based fighting style and​ is ready to slash his way onto the Fields of Justice.

Jungle in S4: jungle area is an important source of income

Dec18

The jungle area has also changed a lot in S4 and many jungler players may not get used to it. Today, I would like to share my jungle experience, hopefully, they can inspire you.

1. Trinkets: Totem is a safe choice, and you can change it to Lens at level 6 or level 9 if you like to gank. 
2. The wild monsters in S4 can deal much damage and jungle exclusive items and supplies are quite important. 
3. Reduce the gank frequency if you can’t guarantee the success rate of gank. It’s very important to communicate with teammates. If you don’t know the ward distribution of the opponent side, you can hardly succeed in ganking.

4. If a lane is in unfavorable situation, you can choose to turn the table. And there’s no need to head to the lane if it’s in extremely unfavorable situation because you may be double killed by the opponents in 1v2. Try to help the favorable lane to widen the gap when you are not sure of the individual skill of your teammates. 

5. Attach importance to the resources in the jungle area. You can take your jungle area as a separate line if you can’t gank well. The economy in the jungle area is as good as that on line. 

Below are some stronger junglers in my mind:

 Evelynn: She is the most overpowered champion in the version, but using her can be risky. 
Lee Sin: I have to admit that he’s the most powerful jungler. 
Shyvana: Her ability to clear monsters fast improves a lot due to the changes in the jungle area. But she is often played as top solo.
Udyr: He has high mobility and good monster clearing speed. And he can be a good choice when you have no idea which one to choose. 
Elise: She owns first-rate control, escape and output abilities, but you may not be able to pick her as she may be banned in ranked games. 
Amumu: He needs certain time to develop in early game. His teammates may be under great pressure when the opponent is a jungler with strong gank ability. 

In addition, Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao and Riven can also be used as junglers as they have nice control and gank capacities. Olaf jungler seems popular in recent matches, but I don’t suggest you to pick him as he requires long period to develop and his gank efficiency is extremely low. Once in unfavorable situation, he won’t be able to turn the table.

 Tag: S4, Jungle

Vision Controlling Is Key to Success in S4

Dec12

In S4, the commonly used vision controlling tactics have been completely overturned: Oracle’s Elixir has been removed. Vision Ward has got a price cut and been not in stealth. The item in the seventh cell has been added. All these changes make players feel uncomfortable at first, especially for those ADC players who totally have no idea about team vision controlling and some junglers who aren’t aware of the importance of team vision controlling.

Today, we will discuss how important to control the vision for a team with two renowned US server players’ ranked games as the illustration. One player is the ADC Doublelift who totally doesn’t know how to control vision. The other is the best North American support Xpecial.

We have made detailed statistics about Doublelift’s 20 ranked games from December 3 to 7 and Xpecial’s 20 ranked games from December 6 to 9. Doublelift got 12 wins and 8 losses. He played as a support two times. Xpecial got 13 wins and 7 losses. He played a mid-solo champion in two of the 20 matches and played as an ADC in one match.

As a support, Xpecial is a big fan of Lens Trinkets. His team didn’t use any Lens Trinket only in one of the 20 games. It owned 1 Lens Trinket in 12 games and had 2 Lens Trinkets in 7 games. In 8 of the 20 games, each team had more than 3 Lens Trinkets.

When Xpecial’s team got some advantages, they were able to use Lens Trinkets to destroy enemies’ turrets, remove their Vision Ward and get their materials in the jungle area, thus it was easier for Xpecial’s team to get the victory.

As for Doublelift, his performance in recent ranked games was not so good. Compared with Xpecial’s team, Doublelift’s team used Lens Trinkets less frequently. They didn’t use the item in five games and use one in 11 games. They used two only in four games. Both sides owned more than 3 items just in one game.

Lens Trinkets is less used compared with other items, which is a common problem in the North American server. It should be mentioned that it is rare to see less than 3 Lens Trinkets in advanced ranked games. Without Lens Trinkets and Vision Ward to control the vision, your team will be difficult to get more advantages in favorable situation and in unfavorable situation. Enemies will enter your team’s jungle area freely as your vision is destroyed. You will be easily ganked. Therefore, vision controlling is important in S4 but it’s really hard to master.

Totem Trinkets are the safest and commonest choice but when you are a support or a jungler, you should pay more attention to the protection of your jungle area and the way to control enemies’ vision.

Orb Trinkets are not helpless. In the studied ranked games at the tier higher than Diamond, one Orb Trinket will be used every 12 games, but according to the current situation, Orb Trinkets are less useful than Lens Trinkets and Totem Trinkets. 

Tag: S4, Vision, Doublelift, Xpecia