Lee Sin

So nobody is quite sure about whether this guy is an April fools or not. I vaguely remember a red post at Riot stating they had no intentions of ever releasing this energy based melee champion.

EDIT: An anonymous has kindly informed me the red post may have possibly deconfirmed Lee instead of cancelling him. Whether that makes an impact on whether they will release him or not I do not know.

Riot have released a genuine image of Lee Sin:

I'm pretty sure he's really going to be released this time. There's a small following on the forums that dictate Urf will be the new character instead. Urf is a seal Warwick killed in the lore, he can be seen floating around ingame.

It's possible Riot will release both characters on April fools, which would be the best solution to avoid the ridiculous complaints spamming the LoL forums.

Here is a list of abilities Lee Sin will allegedly have, directly from the LoL website:


Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike:

• Sonic Wave: Lee Sin projects a discordant wave of sound to locate his enemies, dealing physical damage to the first enemy it encounters. If Sonic Wave hits, Lee Sin can cast Resonating Strike for the next 3 seconds.
• Resonating Strike: Lee Sin dashes to the enemy hit by Sonic Wave, dealing physical damage plus 10% of their missing health.

Safeguard / Iron Will

• Safeguard: Lee Sin rushes towards a target ally, shielding them both from damage. If a shield is broken, half the energy cost is returned. After using Safeguard, Lee Sin can cast Iron Will for the next 3 seconds.
• Iron Will: Lee Sin's intense training allows him to thrive in battle. For 5 seconds, Lee Sin gains lifesteal, spell vamp, and armor.

Tempest / Cripple

• Tempest: Lee Sin smashes the ground sending out a shockwave that deals magic damage and reveals enemy units hit. If Tempest hits an enemy, Lee Sin can cast cripple for the next 3 seconds.
• Cripple: Lee Sin cripples nearby enemies revealed by Tempest, reducing their Movement and Attack Speed for 4 seconds. Movement and Attack Speed recover gradually over the duration.

Dragon's Rage (Ultimate)

• Lee Sin performs a powerful roundhouse kick launching his target back, dealing physical damage to the target and any enemies they collide with. Enemies the target collides with are knocked into the air for a short duration.

Flurry (Passive)

• After Lee Sin uses an ability, his next 2 basic attacks gain 50% Attack Speed and return 10 energy each.

As you can see, Riot have inserted both Lee and Urf into this screenshot, so it could go either way at this point. Guess we'll have to wait til wednesday eh?

My next post will be regarding the recent buffs and nerfs to the game, and what direction Riot are taking it. Check back in a couple days if you're interested.

Upcoming content

Welcome back everyone, I hope you like the new layout. I didn't make any drastic changes because blogger isn't exactly known for doing exactly what you want it to, so frustration got the best of me when attempting to add some of my own HTML code into the blog.

I bet you guys are all sick of seeing Nocturne in the majority of your games this week, despite half of them being terribad noobs. His ultimate gets annoying when it gets casted over and over, and I've stopped playing squishy characters because he's always picking me as a target.

There's a lot to talk about with the changes this patch by Riot. However, I've also decided to cover several other things over the next week, such as:

Recent skins

The blind monk Lee Sin

Recent nerfs and buffs

Videos of the best players

Farming IP

Lane dominance and map control

Make sure you check back if you're interested in any of these topics.

As for me, I've been playing a lot of games recently, and have obtained an array of new characters because of it. Ranked matches have always seemed to be more tard ridden than normal games, which is why I stick to normal. With all the new matches, it's got to the point sometimes where I just pick a faceroll character because I'm feeling lazy. Don't you just love realising the enemies in the lane are feeders? You'll love it even more when playing someone like Teemo or Xin.

I'm going to start preparing my next article now, so check back on monday.

Nocturne!

Allegedly a new stealth hero finally joins the ranks of the League next week, Nocturne.

I'm one of those people who just loves playing characters with invisibility, or any escape ability for that matter. Here's an image of our shadowy champion, for those who haven't seen the awesome. The fact that he uses stealth has not been clarified.

Riot have released a little information on Nocturne, but not much so far.

Nocturne is an assassin type character who functions very differently than the traditional archetypes. Unlike a traditional stealth character such as Twitch who becomes personally invisible, or a character such as Nidalee who has special synergy with the brush, Nocturne’s ultimate ability afflicts the entire enemy team with a specialized debuff. This ultimate – dubbed Paranoia – removes the player’s shared vision with allied units, leaving them blind to anything beyond the sight range of their own champion. In this way, Nocturne is able to sow confusion amongst the enemy team, striking quickly and taking down enemy champions while their allies are blind to their need for assistance.

While this ulti is copied directly from HoN, and probably the DotA equivalent as well, I think it's an excellent addition to the ranks which can disrupt the enemy effectively. Most pub teams will split up and get wiped out during Paranoia, but I believe the good teams will quickly batten down the hatches and ride it out.

I'm a little excited about this guy, more excited than Jarvan anyway! I think a LOT of people are going to be buying him, mainly because of how he looks so awesome. Good one Riot!

Welcome back, Okairinasai

Yeah yeah, I've been gone for a week, I've been very busy with personal issues in real life, therefore I wasn't able to post. Also, I have been working on revamping my hilarious images blog entirely (changes will appear soon). I apologise for the delay, but now the blog will be back on track with plenty of updates and information on the league. This is not a lie fabricated by me because I was watching anime and playing LoL all week (the last few episodes of Bleach were awesome, shame about the filler).

So what do we have since I last posted? There's a new champion out and about, Jarvan IV.

From my experience so far (around 40 games with Jarvan in them), Jarvan is a very strong hero with some excellent utility. He is essentially a tankier version of Xin Zhao. I have fought him 1 on 1 as Xin, and  I lost most fights unless it was late game.

I expect there to be a fair amount of complaining about his ultimate, because trapping 3+ people in a ring while Fiddlesticks or Katarina AoE stomps them is practically GG. For those of you who want to see a video of Jarvan, here is HotshotGG playing his first games with him (skip the first few minutes to get to the game).

Whilst I'd love to chat about Jarvan all day, I'm going to move on to something more important, that was announced today.

League of Legends has been officially confirmed as a title in the 2011 World Cyber Games. This is great news for casual and hardcore player alike, since the League will be featured among some of the greatest games that have ever been produced. Here is a list of the 2011 games:

WCG 2011 Official Game Titles:

Fighting

    * Tekken 6 (Namco Bandai Games)



FPS (First Person Shooting)

    * Counter-Strike 1.6 (Valve)
    * Crossfire (Neowiz Games/Smilegate)
    * Special Force (Dragonfly)



MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)

    * World of Warcraft®: Cataclysm™ (Blizzard Entertainment)



RTS (Real Time Strategy)

    * League of Legends (Riot Games)
    * StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™ (Blizzard Entertainment)
    * Warcraft® III: The Frozen Throne™ (Blizzard Entertainment)



Sports

    * FIFA 11 (Electronic Arts)

WCG is the longest running esports event in history, so with coverage like this expect a fair few new players ingame. Last year League of Legends was only presented as a promotional title in WCG, so they've managed to take a step up the ladder this year. I am personally looking forward to this, considering it's a step towards more competitive play.

On another note, I've been on an incredible win streak this week, I can't remember the last time I've lost more than one game in a row. Touchwood. If you wish to play with me on the US servers, add my summoner name: ByakuyaYO. I know the Yo on the end makes me look like a pleb, deal with it.