Dominion, a worthy addition to the League of Legends franchise?

Dominion has been around for a long time now, and everyone has had their fill of the new map. Some players have even taken to playing it exclusively; which somewhat attests to the success of Riot's new conquest in MOBA gaming. That, and the fact the League forums haven't erupted into rage and QQ.

Dominion consists of five capturable bases/towers, each of which will spawn creep waves to attack the opposing side. Pickups are dotted around the map that grant a small increase to health and mana, reinforced with a stormshield buff for each team in the middle. Each player sports a collective healthbar for their team, which drains when you have less bases or get killed. This setup basically ensues an emphasis on champion fights, which is absolutely fine by me.

About server downtimes and Riot patching

So as of late, the EU servers have been down for almost a fortnight, and the US servers delayed patch downtime was extremely frustrating to those left waiting for it to come back up. Even when the servers came back up the next day, Leona and Yorick, the two most likely to be played characters were not available for play. This has been the worst patch in a long time, and yet I don't see any IP boost on any of my accounts, nor do I see any apology other than "sorry for the delay" scrawled hastily at the bottom of Average Gatsley's post on the LoL forums.

Although Riot were bought recently by Tencent for a whopping $300 million, it certainly hasn't changed much at headquarters. They managed to put up the thread on the forums yesterday explaining how they were working on the problem: 3 hours too late. As with most people I am not really as upset about not being able to play as I am annoyed at Riots terrible customer service.

The ten best pubstomping champions in League of Legends and how to counter them

I have compiled a list of what I believe to be the best pubstomping characters for solo playing League of Legends in 2011. What I mean by pubstomp is the champions that are easiest to obtain multiple kills on with less skill and effort than the enemy team. You have little justification to pick the characters on this list, unless you're a tryhard =3

Please bear in mind, this list is for normal games only. This has nothing to do with ranked or elo, just stomping in a casual match. By no means will any of these characters have the same effect in a ranked game.

This list is now outdated, it was accurate during 2011.

I have also provided some general tips on how to play against and counter these overpowered champions, since it's likely you'll encounter at least one on this list every couple of games. Bear in mind, this advice might not be too useful, they are the most overpowered after all.

I had trouble choosing the top 5, so it's open to interpretation. But in my experience all of the characters in this list deserve to be here.

Honourable mentions:
There are a few other noteworthy characters who might of gotten into the charts, such as Annie, Evelynn, Akali, Rumble, and Master Yi. After careful deliberation and recent patch notes, I made my decisions. Most of them didn't make the list because they can be a little more tricky to play, which means they aren't faceroll.
 
Top ten overpowered Champions and how to counter them

10. Mordekaiser

Why he's overpowered: Morde is classed mostly as a soak, but he can also put out an incredible amount of damage. Lane control is quite often granted to those of Mordekaiser status, because of his big bad shield. While he isn't really considered viable in ranked, it's not uncommon to see this guy fending off hordes of scrubs and carrying in normal games.

How to counter him: 

• In the laning phase try to auto-attack his shield down when you get a good opportunity. Use your abilities to damage him when his shield is low, to work on his health.
• He doesn't use mana, so the only way to stop him is to kill him or deny/harass him. If you can prevent him reaching creeps he won't be able to charge his shield, making him very vulnerable.
• Mordekaiser has a long range on his ultimate, and it does a fair bit of damage. If he has ignite it will really do a number on you, so beware.
• In the early team fights it is vital you kill higher priority weaker targets before taking him down, since he can be quite difficult to kill. Use your best judgement.

9. Malzahar

What makes him overpowered: Malzahar is one annoying bastard. He is granted rank nine on the list purely because of his ultimate, which is a guaranteed kill on practically anyone. The rest of his abilities are surprisingly lacklustre, but they compliment his stupidly OP stun. A good malz in mid will get first blood at level 6 most of the time, since there are almost no characters in the game that can stand up to his Stun+DoT+AoE combo.

How to counter him:

• When facing Malzahar in the lane, you can win fairly easily with your lanemate by double teaming him.
• If you're fighting Malzahar in mid, stay out of his range when he hits level 6. If you can harass him without being ultied, try to send him away. If not, call for a gank or ignore him and farm away. 
• A little magic resist like Banshee's veil or Force of nature will make him target someone else or make you laugh as you shrug off his pathetic combo.
• I thought it would be straightforward, but avoid his silence and AoE like the plague. You gotta be stupid to stand in the purple voidy stuff anyways. His pet shouldn't be too much of a problem. 
• If you can exhaust him before he ults, it will do no damage. Edit: Someone kindly pointed out his ult is a suppression, so even if you have cleanse, sadly you're still fucked.

8. Xin Zhao

Why he's overpowered:  Although some recent changes have somewhat nerfed Xin, he still remains one of the best Champions to win your lane. With an awesome gap closer and faceroll knockup, enemies will be eating your spear as you carry your team to victory.

How to deal with him:

• Xin's passive allows him to regenerate health when attacking, so don't let him get near creeps if you have harassed him.
• Once you learn the range he can leap on you from, take advantage of this knowledge and kite him.
• Stay near towers because getting surprised by Xin isn't pleasant.
• Don't bunch up in team fights, spread out a little so Xin can't hit multiple targets with his ultimate.

7. Swain

Why he's faceroll: If you haven't laned against Swain, you can count yourself lucky. This guy is one of the most rageworthy champs in the game. His AoE snare deals substantial damage, and combined with the DoT Swain is capable of killing weaker players early game. He trades that all in at level 6 for the godmode hat of douchery, since his ultimate heals him incredibly quickly. Those idiots who have trouble controlling the toggle on Swains crows and can't land a stun still get kills, which is why he is rank 7 on the list.

How to kick his ass:

• Before you get boots, it's difficult to avoid his snare, so make it hard for him to land it on you. When you have boots, you can screw around with him by moving unpredictably. 
• A lot of his damage is DoT
• His ultimate gives him a ridiculous amount of health per tick, it can require a team effort to take him down, or an ignite. Try to burn his mana if you can't finish the kill.
• Swain is almost defenseless against heavy DPS carries, he moves slowly and they can slaughter him mid to late game.

6.  Irelia

Why she's rollface: With a gap closer that resets every last hit, farming on Irelia can be like a creep hoover. Hiten style allows for a little lifesteal to help in the lane and some true damage for good measure. Her ultimate is amazing at shooting down runners, and she is surprisingly tanky. Due to some comments, I have replaced Yi with Irelia, since it seems like a logical trade.

How to subdue her:

• As usual, the best way to shut down a carry like Irelia is to deny her farm and experience.
• Don't waste time using stuns and silences on her in a teamfight, just burst her down.
• She is an excellent 1v1 champion, don't approach her unless you know you can win.
• Irelia can shoot several missiles for a lot of damage. They can be quite easily avoided if you strafe.

5.  Jax

Why he's overpowered: Jax is a whore. You can jump him with 2 people, get him to 10% health, then he'll one shot the both of you and take your tower. His burst is so ridiculous he can eat tanks in seconds, and weaker targets just dissapear. Fear the Jax, fear him.
He isn't the most mobile of characters, but that's more than made up for by his damage.

How to counter him:

• To stand up to Jax toe to toe you need to be fairly tanky. He can be bursted down, but beware he can easily take a squishier character down with him. 
• I know I've mentioned Exhaust a lot, but it is a very useful spell to shut down annoying pubstomping champions. Yes, it works wonderfully on Jax.
• Before level 6 he is very weak, and with a little co-ordination you and your lanemate can harass him out of the lane several times.
• Don't leave him to cruise around destroying your team, focus on shutting him down.

4. Tryndamere

Why he melts face: Everyone knows the Tryndaking. His 'R' is arguably the best ultimate in the game, 5 seconds of wtf he can't die. I've seen people play tank on Tryndabling and still get a godly score while carrying the team. Up until level 6 he's nothing special, but after that a good player can't really die on him if cautious. What makes him rank four on the top overpowered list however, is not his ultimate. When Tryndamere gets on you, slows your ass, then start critting you like Batman you know it's all over.

How to combat him:

• He always has his ultimate up, trust me. 
• Ignite him before his ulti wears off, it will usually finish him.
• Be wary of tower dives, Tryndamere can and will do it at level 6. If you can kite him around the turret, it could backfire on him.
• Don't waste time nuking him while his ulti is up, focus other targets instead.
• If you face him when he casts his slow, it will reduce your attack damage but you won't be slowed. If you can abuse this, it makes it much easier to kite him.

3. Nunu

Why he's wtfOP: With unstoppable lane staying power and a hard hitting slow, Nunu earnt his place as rank 3 in the overpowered chart. In a normal game his ultimate turns the tide of team fights, and is easy to place. At max rank Nunu's snowball and speed increase is awesome for setting up ganks and teamfights. There's nothing to aim, it's near impossible to die if you're playing cautious, and you can harass/kill most champions in the lane.

How to beat him down:

• If you're quick, you can escape his ultimate before it's fully charged. Flash is excellent for this.
• Eating creeps restores a massive chunk of Nunus health, if you can force him back, you can keep him on the defensive.
• Beware if Nunu is missing, he is very fast and his snowball makes it very hard to escape.
• Silence or stun his ultimate, it will do no damage if you interrupt it early.
• In a teamfight focus his allies first. Besides his ult, Nunu has little utility in a 5v5 situation.

2. Udyr

Why he's godly: With a slight buff recently, Udyr is now terrifying. If you find yourself fed on this guy, you've pretty much won. Towers, Nexus, Players, or Baron, it's all dead if it tries to face the stance shifting bear man.What surprises me, is how underplayed this guy is. His turtle stance has something like a 2 second cooldown, which makes him a good soak, practically as good as Mordekaiser. Tiger stance is where it's at, it places a powerful DoT on everything, including towers. I think a lot of people just don't know how to play him, but you'll want to when you see an Udyr go 10-0 in 3v3.

How to fight him:

• If he's jungling, put some wards up and gank him early game.
• Don't waste time trying to harass him in the lane, he can heal and shield himself. Either attack his lanemate or burst him down.
• Udyr is incredibly vulnerable to kiting. It is the best way to survive his burst. Flash is also excellent.
• Seize control of the game early on and don't allow it to get to late game. A fully built Udyr is a wrecking ball.

1. Katarina

Katarina statistics on Lolbase are better than any other champion

 Why she's an overpowered bitch: Now we're down to the rank 1, I can really start complaining. Katarina takes no skill at all, yet kills fall into your lap faster than a drunk ugly chick at a party. Her ultimate is spin to win kill everything nearby except tanks, and to top it all off, she can teleport directly onto enemies for optimal spinnage. All of Kats abilities reset cooldown upon killing an enemy, so the more you faceroll the more you can faceroll wut? Seriously, if you can't succeed on Kat you really need some practice, kills are easy pickings. If you want to learn more about her, take a look here.

How to not get killed by her:

• Her ultimate cooldown is supershort, so have a disable ready every time you encounter her.
• Early game her damage output isn't very good, and she can't farm very well. Capitalize on this by denying her experience and gold.
• Don't let her farm throughout the game and she won't be a threat.
• Exhaust stops her ult killing your entire team. 
• She can use shunpo to escape easily, try to see which creep/champion she is going to teleport to before she does it.
• Don't risk standing in the ultimate, unless you're a tank.

That's it for my list of faceroll Champions, if you enjoyed it or disagree with any of the above, please comment!

If you want some hilarious League of Legends comics to kill time, here's a link.

Edit: Thanks to a comment from a viewer, I have changed the eighth rank from Shaco to Xin Zhao. He made a fair point, since Shaco isn't particularly easy to play.

Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier and a Rant

So I'm trying to decide which editing software to use, I have enough experience to use both Premier and Vegas.

So far, I have recorded a couple of games, although only one of them was good enough for footage. Fraps is excellent software for recording LoL games, but it cannot compress as it works, hence a 30 minute game equals a whopping 30 gigabytes of your hardrive space.

Today, I'm going to be ranting a little about League of Legends, because I'm upset the forums aren't full of people putting Riot in their place anymore.

I found this epic comic. Even though it's entirely fictional, it only furthers my impression of Riots incompetence.

 Don't get me wrong guys I love League of Legends, but since World of Warcraft came out, I've had a critical eye for any problems dealt with badly in a game. Riot can't seem to do anything right anymore, from the rushed out tribunal to their pathetic E3 performance.

Riot are the kind of company who should be busking copies of their game on the street outside E3, they shouldn't be allowed inside. Looks like they put a lot of effort into the video too, not that it does much good.

Spectator mode? I'd rather use fraps than Riots shitty coding, thanks. They also introduce 3 new champions, probably because they are still guilty about magma chamber and their dozens of other promises.

So today I've been overly insulting towards Riot, but in my eyes, they got extraordinarily lucky with their game, and the only thing keeping League afloat is the fact that it's retard friendly. Ever met a high elo player who wasn't pissed off at the game for some reason? No. Because all the good players know the game is flawed.

I want to know what happened to the $400 million that tencent spent on Riot, because their production values haven't increased that much.

As you leave my blog today, you need to ask yourself a very important question. Where is the content we were promised months ago? Where is that money you spent on RP going to? Why have Tencent (now majority stakeholders) not told Riot to stop being douchebags?

Ask yourself these questions, because I sure as hell don't know the answer.

Refusing to give up

I've recently been playing games with a friend who refuses to surrender, regardless of how badly we're losing. Usually, I commend this kind of attitude, because during most losses you still have that window to initiate a perfect teamfight; which will decimate the enemy.

However, I get really annoyed when we're 10 - 0 down 20 minutes in, and everybody still thinks they can win. For god's sake, you've had 20 minutes to fail repeatedly, and if you haven't had even one kill, then it's time to pack up and fuck off to another game.

Does anyone else have to put up with this crap? Cause when you got a team of bads against a co-ordinated team, it sucks out the fun of the game and leaves you putting up with 50 minutes of getting owned repeatedly, just because some retard thinks his 4 - 3 is a pro score and doesn't want to give up.

Also, I learnt an awesome new insult for LoL players, tryhard. Figure it out yourselves, scrubbers =D

Rumble!

So there's a new champion in town this week, using a new heat system. Rumble, the mechanized menace looks like an interesting addition to the roster of the league.

Here's the spotlight for those who haven't seen it:

Riot have tried to introduce a new targeting system using Rumbles ultimate, much reminiscent to bombardier from HoN. Whilst I applaud their attempts to create a wider variety of spell possibilities, it does seem a little overcomplicated to aim.

A list of his abilities:

• Flamespitter: Rumble torches the area in front of him with his flamethrower dealing damage to all units in a cone for several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” this spell deals additional damage.
• Scrap Shield: Rumble creates a shield blocking incoming damage for several seconds and granting a short duration speed boost. While in the “Danger Zone,” the shield’s strength and speed boost increase.
• Electro-Harpoon: Rumble launches a missile that deals magic damage and applies a stackable slow on the target. A second shot can be fired for no additional cost within several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” the damage and slow percentage is increased.
• The Equalizer (Ultimate): Rumble calls down a line of rockets over the target location. Enemies in the scorched area take damage over time and are slowed.
• Junkyard Titan (Passive): Rumble's abilities generate heat. When Rumble is above 50 heat, he is in the "Danger Zone," causing all his basic spells to have additional effects. When Rumble reaches 100 heat he overheats, silencing himself and causing his physical attacks to deal additional magic damage. Rumble loses heat over time.

I don't think I'll be buying this one, but we'll see in 2 weeks when he come out as free to play.

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.

News update

So what's been happening this week at Riot?

They have finally announced the release of Jarvan IV, the long awaited Exemplar of Demacia. Xin Zhao is this guys bodyguard, so surely he's going to be overpowered. Here is the only picture that has been released of Jarvan, a long time ago. This is the only interesting news Riot have posted this week, apart from the various skin price reductions and summoner showcase.

He is allegedly a dps character, hence the giant spear. However, to me he looks like he could easily be implemented as another skin for Xin Zhao. Riot are going to have to be careful with his skills, or he could just end up as Xin mark II.

So what else happened this week? The european servers were horribly broken for the better part of the week, with countless chat and ingame errors. It seems to have cleared up now though, so congratulations EU players, it's a shame you had so much downtime.

I saw some freedom fighters on the EU forums who decided since their forums and client weren't working properly, they thought they could fix the problem by spamming the US servers until they broke down. This was pretty damn funny, because I can't see a grain of logic behind that inspired plan.

Derp.

The free champions of the week have inspired a lot of QQ on the forums throughout the week, namely about Irelia. I don't have any problem with her balance whatsoever, but since the casuals do; Irelia players buckle down for the incoming nerf.

Other than that, this week has been incredibly baaawring for LoL, maybe they've decided to keep some cards up their sleeve instead of drooling them all over the table which seems to be the usual plan.

I personally am working for a couple more interviews, so hopefully you'll get to see those in the next couple of days. Until then, have a good weekend folks, or what's left of it.

Another day another post.

For more comics, go to any of these links:
League comics
More League comics
And some more
Some League comics
Well, guess.

So, last night I had a pretty awesome dream.

Me and my team were losing a LoL game badly. We were killing dragon to catch up, and the enemy team found us when we'd barely started. All of my allies retreated, and I got caught with an exhaust. Now I can imagine at this point in the dream I was probably clawing my mattress, softly mumbling "Noooo....", because that's what I do when I get ganked when I'm awake.

Anyway, while I'm feebly trying escape this gank; I have an alarming epiphany. At this point I'm almost dead. However, I realise at the last moment: I'm Tryndamere.

With a mighty roar, I yell: "I'M TRYNDAMERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (In my dream, and in real life) And pentakill the entire enemy team. For some reason this awoke me from my slumber, to crawl out of bed and post to you today.


Before my sanity is brought into question, let me pose another one. Do you think Trynd is overpowered? Because there has been a surprising amount of QQ on the forums about it recently. I personally think he's a lacklustre damage class with his ultimate being his only utility. The slow is alright, but only late game when you have officially reached god mode status.

The comics are here because they went down so well last time. Enjoy.

EDIT: There seems to be a little misunderstanding about the comics, I have stated in a previous post I did not draw them, but I shall say it again. All credit goes to Omnibus, they are hilarious, and they are very well drawn.

Keep on trollin' trollin' trollin'

So, I've just played a game where a first time Ezreal demanded middle lane from me as Teemo. Without wanting to cause a division in the team, I happily trot off to bottom lane with Mordekaiser. Sure, we have no synergy in the lane, but that's alright anyway, as long as the team hasn't fallen apart.

Sure enough, the game starts and Ezreal dies to Kassadin at level 3. How do you die to Kassadin at level 3? He doesn't even have his main spell, the only spell that Kass is useful for. Ezreal continues to feed, over and over. Until Kassadin is an unstoppable beast, who teleports around the map shutting down all of our lanes whilst spamming us with "Nice try lol!" "You suck."

At this point, nobody can stop him, because he's over levelled and over fed. We get snowballed into a loss. So the question I pose to you is this: Which person is more rageworthy, the Kassadin or the Ezreal?

I choose Ez, because I hate damn feeders.

If you feel like it, share your tales of horrible games that turned worse. This is a tame story compared to some of the games I've had, but it's the most recent. Regardless, I still raged.

Riot should keep the champions of the week as easy mode characters, like Xin Zhao and Ashe. Not that they take less skill to master, but you can pick them up and play without feeding... Too much.

On another note, Heat n Serve has gone on vacation for a week. When he returns, he will be answering my interview questions! So look forward to that! In the meantime, if anyone has a specific person they'd like me to talk to or a specific question you'd like me to ask Heat n Serve, let me know!

And finally, a couple of LoL comics to make you laugh:

Interview #3 CANCELLED

It appears Heat n Serve wasn't able to complete the questions I sent him, which is a shame because I was looking forward to reading it. Anyway, I've been trying to think of some eligible content to publish today.

I thought I'd cover a couple of things, starting with my favorite, Riots inadequacy:


Summoners!
Yesterday, many of you logged in to play League of Legends only to experience bugged IP rewards. As this is not the level of service that we strive to maintain, we wanted to offer all those players affected by these issues something to compensate for their negative experience.
If you logged in and played a game yesterday, your account will automatically be credited with a 10 Win IP Boost. Distribution of the boosts may take up to five days, so if you don’t get yours right away, don’t panic! We haven’t forgotten about you, it just takes some time to credit that many boosts! We apologize for the inconvenience, and for any disruptions to your regular gameplay schedule.
Thank for your patience and for your continued support for League of Legends!

When the new IP system came out, it was flawed and didn't work. Which didn't surprise nor annoy me; I play for fun not for the points. So then Riot announce we get a free boost. And once again, they didn't work. So this post on the news section is their attempt to apologise I guess, because third time is the charm. Amusing as always Riot, when will you get things right. <3

So, moving on. We've all seen the new UI, it's a little more complicated but it looks nice I guess. Vladmir escaped the heavy nerf that we were all expecting, probably by blood pooling out of it. The overpowered bastard.

I'd also like to reveal a few pieces of LoL art that have caught my eye today, League art is always so impressive.

Mhhhm Katarina. Dunno what the background is about, but looks good nonetheless. I'm actually half sure Riot are implementing this as a skin ingame. I'd buy it.

 I thought this was very nice actually, all the League art is so much better than what we see by Blizzard, and that's saying something. Ashe is one of my favorite characters, although she's a little easy to play, except for her ulti.

Now this one just looks like an attempt to remake the DotA loading screen. Fail. No wonder it's not in the game.

That's all I have for you today guys, I'll make sure I get something extraspecial for you tomorrow. For now, just eat your cookie and take a nap.

Riot introduce paid tournaments! Finally!

A new post on the League of Legends website:




Summoners,
You asked for organized weekly tournaments and we’re here to deliver!
We saw how the ESL Go4LoL & Master Series provided an awesome experience for our European competitors, so now we want to bring all of you the same experience on this side of the pond.
The ESL will be running two competitions for North Americans:

1. The Go4LoL Tournament Series starts with weekly $100 one day tournaments that culminate in $1,000 finals for the teams that earn the most placement points during the month.
2. The National ESL Premier League will be an invite division where the best of North Amerca compete for $5,000. The top teams will be invited to compete against their European counter-parts in the ESL Major Series. Stay tuned for more details on this division.

All of these events will also be a part of the Season One Circuit, which means that the top eight teams in each event will earn Circuit Points that advance them ever so closer to being invited to the $100,000 tournament at the end of Season One. You can find the North American standings here.
The first qualifiers start this weekend, so what are you waiting for? Sign up a team today and start practicing.

The first thing I will say is, AWESOME. There's been a lot of posts on the Riot forums regarding competitive play recently, and this is the first step in the right direction. This is a wonderful way to encourage players to practice and play to win. I am behind Riot on this one all the way.


Whilst I will not enter myself, I hope plenty of people sign up for this. I will be watching all the live streams though, so I can put on my coolface when someone makes a mistake and brag to my friends about how I'm so much better.

It appears the massive success of the Go4LoL tournaments have finally gotten Riot's attention. This could be a new beginning to the League of Legends, because as of now, the game is considered "casual". When I hear this, it really pisses me off, despite the fact it's true. LoL is a game orientated for casual players, even in ELO. Of course a common player couldn't reach the top rankings, but average players can meet a fair amount of success in ranked matches. I play the game to win, and I'd like to play competitively, when I've had a few hundred more games of practice.

I really hope these tournaments bring a new era of play to LoL, because I know there's a lot of us out there that want there to be a more reliable and skilled playerbase.

Good job Riot, you managed to announce a change that most people will find favorable. The only downside I can see is a drastic influx of elitist players. Actually.... That's not good. Really not good. Oh dear.