off the shaco support stuff for a moment, I'm starting to think about jungle in the new season - in particular dragon functionality.   With teams getting flat bonus as opposed to global gold, I'm wondering if it will be worth to take junglers that can solo dragon early to provide a perm team buff.  To me, that actually sounds like a reasonable plan as you get an early drag AND likely get the timer for a potential 2nd team drag.  I'm actually thinking it could be worth to take jungler that is weaker at ganks, etc, in favor of something like that. Thoughts?

you have to kill dragon 5 times before you get a significant buff out of it (and even on live, +5000 gold is huge). Which means you don't get it until 40 minutes. Then it's nearly a permanent baron buff...

The first two buffs aren't even really useful for anyone other than mages midlane or mana-hungry junglers. Supports, i guess. Remember that HP5/MP5 items are now a % mulitplier with your current base MP5 + Dragon buffs. So in order to get much out of the first two buffs you have to already be building some HP5/MP5.

There's also the sidelane buffs @ 20 minutes... which makes having stronger top/bottom lanes better. (though i think 20 minutes is too early and they should push it back to 25/30).

Anyway, the way i see it, it's a way for early-game junglers to be able to scale into endgame better. An early game jungler who is able to get 2-out-of-5 buffs repeatably is going to help. There will just be that awkward 4-out-of-5 moment when the enemy Amumu kicks their face in. Early game junglers are also going to be making invasions and a lot of counter-jungles.

i mean, i think that the jungle is going to be much more of a "lane" than it is now. That's not to say that ganking is no longer an important thing to do... but it's going to be much easier to snowball against the enemy jungler.  That's a better reason to take a good farmer/duelist.

hurm... dragon is only a buff for whoever kills it?  Ah... that was not my understanding.  Thought it was a team wide buff. 

Buff says - slaying the epic monster dragon gives the strength of the dragon to this uint. Power increases based on number of stacks.

1. +5health/mana regen
2. +8AD +8AP
3. +15 MS
4. + 100 health
5.  triple other bonuses - so, + 15 hp/mana per 5, +24AD/+24AP, +45 MS, + 300 hp.

If its not a team buff, well smeh. 

Also, I saw this:  Dragon now deals 20% damage to units for every time that team has slain Dragon and takes 7% less damage from units from every time that team has slain Dragon.  Killing Dragon now gives 50% less XP.

Anyway, anyone know if I have that right - only 1 person gets that dragon slain buff?

No, everyone gets the buff.

Thanks for getting the numbers, i was trying to find them but couldnt...

Anyway, the first one is kind of nice in laning phase (it's a health pot and a 1.5 mana pots every base assuming you base ~3 minutes), but with how popular manaless champs are... But since the new regen items are % multipliers now, if you're buying a Chalice or a Spirit Stone that can actually be decent. But like i said, mostly only good on mages mid and mana hungry junglers.

8 AD is worth 360 gold, so it takes two dragons for the ADC to really get any benefit, and it's 360 gold worth of stats is less than 2 dragons are now (espiecially when you consider how freaking good ADC items are). Granted, it doesn't take up a slot, which is nice. 8 AP is only worth about 160 gold so mages don't care that much. And most tank jungles/supports don't have that great AP ratios anyway.

+15 MS is finally useful. i think the best thing to compare it against is basically a free 475 gold Alacrity enchantment for the entire team. Technically 15 MS is only worth ~196 gold since boots give 25 MS for 325 gold, but since it's the THIRD dragon everyone already has boots (and probably T2 boots).

+100 health is technically only worth about 200 gold, but it also doesn't take up a slot which makes it really good for carries. Usually i imagine Last Whispers will be done around this time and so ADCs might only have just started on the defensive items, so this is like half a ruby crystal in the meantime. It will also make GAs better on carries.

One interesting interaction is that since Baron will no longer give HP5/MP5, just a bit of AD+AP+out of combat MS+Tower damage instead, trading dragon for baron to get the 4th stack might actually be a decent trade because you'll be actually probably "better" at fighting than the baron team - and your buff sticks around.

Of course, once you get 5 buffs... it gets really crazy.

So pretty much, first two buffs are only marginally useful (ADC gets less than what they got before from two dragons. First buff is nice on mages and junglers. Third buff is really good. Fourth is actually not that great, but it is kind of a formality into The jungler himself gets a lot of out of all the buffs since it provides immediate stats that don't take slots, and junglers tend to use a lot of their slots with minor components + health pots + wards.

Fifth buff, of course, is insane

OK - if it is a team wide buff, then I'm back to thinking it still might be worth a jungler that can solo.  Buff #1 is pretty useful imo if you can get it early enough in the game (even only at +5hp/mana) and again, you can probably get the dragon timer when the enemy team doesn't have eyes on it.  And you then have leg up on additional drags.  Also, junglers that can solo drag early are,  you know, often good at dragon control.  Anyway, we'll see how things pan out, but I think it might open up some strategies.  I concluded that in the previous season, it was not worth taking someone that can solo drag and grab it super quick early due to the low ganking trade offs. 

I wouldn't expect that fifth buff to come into play very often.  If you snag five in a row you should have the game won anyway.  It seems pretty in line with what you can get for the gold, otherwise.  That fifth buff will probably only come into play for breaking a stalemate.  First fully itemized team to hit 5 and successfully Baron should have an overwhelming advantage over their fully itemized opponents, with far more than a legendary item's worth in bonus stats.

hedgie hit plat again last night. Grats hedgie!

karls - come back to us. 

i think you misunderstand the purpose of this thread

So I tried a couple unconventional supports yesterday for fun - did swain and GP.  Swain's E and W both proc all stacks of spell thief due to Dot, so poke dmg is decent. That said, gimmick is gimmick. With gp I was able to "help" by "assisting" with my ult occasionally ksing. 

Anyone have thoughts on alternative supports to give a go?  Trying to see if there is something new to try out or fun. 

Kayle is good with a team that understands the ult.  Xin, Lee and Darius can be good kill lane supports, a Garen gave me trouble once or twice too.  Xerath and Brand can be extremely irritating, I've seen a Xerath support dominate the game.

GP is actually completely legit in my opinion.  Situational sure, but as long as you build stuff  with at least some utility like Iceborn and use your ult intelligently to help your team, he's solid IMO.

There's a lot of closet legit Supports out there that could be the new Bot Lane Shaco.  Problem is, I think you'd need to play a lot of games to figure them out and I don't think you have the dedication/love for any one champion to do it.   You like trying new things and theory crafting, but there seems to be a limit that it holds your attention.  If Support Sejuani is a secretly OP amazing thing, the Koreans would have told us already.  If Support Sejuani is something that can be really good and fun but only after playing a hundred games on her to figure it out, I don't see you as the man who loves playing Sejuani enough to do that.

As far as trying something new out for fun, you don't seem like the type of person who has fun while losing which is what's going to happen before you learn how to play something new.

Plus it's not easy finding an ADC to put up with alternative Support choices sometimes.   You get kinda nuts when I go Thresh bot lane with you, and Thresh is as meta as it gets.  I don't even steal your kills, just screw up your CSing sometimes..  I don't even know how ballistic you'd get if someone stole your kills as AP Shaco Support.  So with guys like you out there, you're probably only going to be able to experiment on Team Builder, since you're eventually going to run out of MadCasters that you haven't gotten upset at for their champ selection and Riot has seen fit to make Normal Draft Mode into a version of Prisoner's Island.

Edit: But to actually answer your question?  Galio.  Tanky, good CC, okay support utility, could go Blue Knife or Relic Shield since he's melee.

Really dug what I saw of worlds this morning.  Watched the opening and game 1.  Uncle shouty korean hype guy seemed to have  fun.  Without going into any spoilers atm, I am wondering if a particular team threw 1 game just to give the audience more of a show.  Not sure sure, but it looks like that to me based on team selection.  Going to watch some VODs later.

I was super impressed with how methodically vision control was handled by SSW in game 1 though.  Just completely ridiculous - roaming with support and jungle and gaining complete vision control of south side jungle then  diving mid easily with full knowledge.  Really impressive. 

i know you had a shitty day, pacov, and there's no doubt going to be a post so i'm gonna preface it here:

i wasn't really trying to "run my mouth" and trash talk you there at that last game while you were stepping away. i know that you had had a few shitty games, and you had said the game before that you even wanted to "relax" in a Solo Lane. And that game wasn't particularily relaxing for you. With the picks, you were really worried about leaving both Lucian/Tristana and since you're the only one who really plays them (and is good at them), having you picking them was probably the best for us, composition wise.

i recognized that since you were already on tilt that trying to rotate you out of ADC was maybe going to lessen the chances of us winning, but it would probably lessen the chance of people fighting. So that was my intention, not trying to blacken your name or try to trash talk you. i'm sorry if you felt otherwise, and i'm sympathetic to you having a shitty set of personal games, even if some of them turned out to be victories (eg, the Jayce game)./

aw - no worries hedgie.  No fu you post was planned for you.  :P  I played like poo town yesterday.  Pretty consistently weak play outside of 1 game where we stomped.  I've pretty much lumped that blujay fellow in with the sy type now though.  Don't think I'll be inviting him in the future even though I made a spot for him previously.  Got under my skin a bit and we don't really have enough history for me to value playing with him in any way, so that's that as far as I'm concerned.  Really dislike when folks see you are clearly on tilt and egg you on further.

Anyway, here's hoping I play better the next time we get together because I certainly was a bit off.  Was nice to meet your pal btw thunder.  Seemed like a nice fella. 

So, its been enough time - any thoughts on worlds?  I think it was a really well organized.  I'm bummed there was no cool reveal for LoL though - seemed like they'd show us something.  The 2 teams in world was a bit a of a let down in my mind.  I'd have much rather seen... well.... most other teams face off against SSW. 

I was reading that there will be a 12 hour outage for LoL in the near future on NA (this week or next week I think).  Signs point to NA getting updated hardware, so hopefully we'll see some improvements there.  From what I read, EU had the same length of an outage when they got updated hardware that helped out a bunch.

Re: Kupopuffs

Yeah, I like him.  Nice guy, but goddamn there are too many Support mains running around.  He's actually quite decent considering his time playing, but he's still in that phase of "Look at my new Leona rune page!"  And I go "Uh... yeah.  Lots of flat AP eh?  Hmmmm..."

Re: Blujay

People who haven't played with you for years might now be able to pick up on the signs that it's not a good time to roust you.  The game he was talking about teaching you how to Jinx in was one where we were winning decisively.  Hedgie and I know that it's best not to tease you (or anyone) when you're dealing with getting camped, but I'm sure there are a few more people out there who aren't careful about what they say during a game where their team overall is doing very well.

Re: I'm Not Karl You're The One That's Karl You're Driving Me Karl!

I'm not a huge fan of the invade.  Works good in professional games, works good against disorganized Silvers/Golds.  Against decent players who know to ward and harass?  Meh.  I'm fine with my safe, easy, simple style of Jungling J4 and confident in it.  And since my usual style involves grabbing two buffs and beating the shit out of the enemy Top laner, I think you would have liked the results better.

I'm not a Jungle specialist like Karl, but that's no reason to declare yourself the only one capable of playing Jungle on our team.  Felt like it gimped our role choices for the games after.

ah - if I said anything along those lines, I think it was tilty mcgee.  Sorry!  I feel like you jungle well.  I also have no idea how bainick ended up supporting in the last game when I thought he said he wanted to jungle.  re: dr jay - meh.  guy's rubbed me the wrong way a few times now.  It's not just last night, its generally joining games demanding specific roles, deciding to play goofy crap as it suits him.  Pretty much all of my experiences w/ him have been along those lines, so oh well.  That's that. 

Oh - and it looks like karl managed to grind back up to plat yesterday.  Grats! 

No offense taken.

He didn't want to jungle, he was willing to jungle because he was told no one else on the team knew how.

He's a really good Support player who enjoys the role and tries to play it every chance he gets, so if you were going to play ADC in a frustrated mood we wanted him bot lane with you.  I ended up playing a jungler I've never played in a bot game because we switched him up thinking Bryff could take Vi top again.  That didn't happen so I was dying at my red right when Bainick was asking for help bot lane.  

We've all had frustrating nights that we'd like to end on a win.  If that happens, I suggest we all take a moment before queuing up again and figure out our best possible tryhard roles and champs.

So i recently moved back into my folks' house so I can attend college in the spring... I'm having a MAJOR issues with my setup... big reason I've been so mia recently... i'm trying to figure it out though... i can't really play 'seriously' at the moment with my current setup... so i'll just be playing silly games until i get it figure out.

Love you bunches,

Swan

Don't forget to play the occasional ranked game to prevent the demotion!

<3

yeah seriously - karl went through enough pain just to get back to plat (though he said the prob was caused by riot demoting him at like 20 days).  Def worth getting a game in.  Not a bad idea to check when your last game was and figure out when you need to play again.  I'm currently just sticking with a game every 20 days unless I get inspired to play.

Gotta say.. work has been kicking my arse lately.  I'm completely wiped out from on call - literally getting paged out every day this week for something, had an install at 4:30AM yesterday, paged out that night at 2AM for more work, etc, etc.  I'm noticing a hit in my reaction time to things in League.  Played a few games are gnar in top.  I like him now, especially against ryze. 

looks like the ash exploit has been fixed:  http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/bug-report/PXtpNR29-gameplay-gamebreaking-ashe-bug?comment=002d

which is good... currently she has 3rd highest win rate in plat/gold. 

K - so I decided to try out vpn tunneling to improve my ping and see if that works.  wtfast is a free trial vpn service.  http://www.wtfast.com/

Anyway, open up lol and start a custom game to get a baseline for ping.  Mine was 95 which is really low for me (usually 102-122 or so).  Anyway, I install the program, choose the free trial, and fire it up after following instructions. Entire process to test and setup was about 5 min (eg check it out imo). 

Anyway, with the proggy running, I fire up another custom in lol.  Immediately at the load screen I hit 130 ping.  But that drops to 80-81 after a couple of seconds.  Anyway, it stays consistent there.  A ping diff of 15 isn't that gigantic imo, but I'm going to run with this setup and see what i see.  Here's the stats it put out.

hmnm... tried another 1 of their servers and now I'm hitting 71 ping. 

Peter is gold V and close to gold 4 no one has an excuse to get gold anymore. I think peter went from bronze 1 to gold V in 2 weeks?