League of Legends

[Kaden]

Haven't heard of one, but you should be able to find out on the forums.

[Ander]

I finally tried Teemo, and Civik tried Taric. We tore shit UP in our games. We took bottom and got first turret every time. Open up with Blind Dart, we mess 'em up, and then when they try to run away they go right into a Mushroom Trap. Aw yeah.

[Ander]

Twitch got nerfed in the last patch. Increased cooldown on Spray and Pray while they decreased its attack speed.

[Tyr]

Halleluja what a lovely daaaaay..

[Kaden]

It's a virtually meaningless nerf. It's so insignificant it won't change anything about the way Twitch functions. He'll still cap his attack speed, and he'll still be able to drop two or three people at a time. (EDIT: the problem with Twitch isn't Spray and Pray, it's being able to stack massive attack speed buffs [Ambush + ult] and have them be multiplicative. It starts out good and just gets broken once he grabs virtually any amount of +attack speed.)

What I'm more concerned with is the ridiculous buff that Udyr got. I thought he was relatively well balanced before. The last thing he needs is to be able to perma max stacks of his passive, or have all his stance effects running at once.

I have mixed feelings about Poppy. Her ult is very similar to Tryn's, without the risk associated with it ending. I think I would feel better about it if they added some kind of very clear effect to her target. Otherwise, there's virtually no way to tell, and I think that defeats the purpose of the skill (my interpretation of the "purpose" is to force someone into a 1v1 with her).

I think all of her other skills are balanced just fine. Heroic Charge gets a little wonky when it starts treating minions and other champs as "terrain" for the stun and bonus damage.

[Tyr]

Any nerf to Twitch is a good nerf. I still think he's overpowered as hell, though I haven't played against the new champ yet. As a matter of fact, I haven't played League of Legends in quite a while...

[Kaden]

Twitch isn't really overpowered. He's a one-trick pony. People just freak out when he pops out of stealth. A stun or blind or knock-up usually removes the threat of his Spray and Pray, and he can be dropped in three or four hits. Just make sure your team knows to go after him as soon as he pops out of stealth.

There are also plenty of champs to start playing if you're worried about Twitch. Tryn, Ryze, and Teemo are all awesome anti-Twitch champs. Anyone with a decent stun (Ashe, Sion, and Eve, for example) can also drop without too much trouble.

[Tyr]

In every game I play with Twitch being on my team, he gets top kills because he stacks attack power and then literally shreds through multiple champions at once because they can't get near him enough because we smack them away. I just can't see a way to effectively kill a Twitch, which is why when I play with my "premade" we usually shit bricks versus other Twitch because it's all about who drops the other Twitch late game who wins.

[Kaden]

If you're building a team around keeping Twitch safe, then of course he's going to do ridiculously well, but that's a silly argument. (Sidenote, but fact of the matter is, if you have three or four people gunning for one specific champs during a fight, he's going down 99% of the time. It's on the other team to respond to the situation appropriately.)

The test of a champion's balance isn't based on how they do in premades. It's about looking at long-term performance in pick-up games, more than anything else. Honestly, the only change I would make to Twitch would be to take the attack speed buff off of his stealth. Its redundant and, really, the thing that "breaks" Twitch is him being able to cap his attack speed with a few ranks of Ambush and his ultimate.

[Tyr]

We don't specifically build our team around shielding him but he ends up being the heart of the group no matter what we do. He has insane damage when he get items, insane attack speed off the bat, take out turrets without being hit and kill multiple champs at once in group battle. It doesn't matter that he goes down fast because the truth is we go down faster.

[Kaden]

We don't specifically build our team around shielding him

I definitely misread part of your post. I was crazy tired.

EDIT: However, I stand by my original thesis: most of the time, if Twitch wipes all or most of your team, it's because your team let him. A lot of players just get into a team fight a focus on the one person they decide to fight, forsaking awareness of the entire team. That just doesn't work. When you have champs like Twitch or Evelyn or Twisted Fate or Fiddlesticks who can just poof and do something drastic, you have to respond accordingly, even if it means giving up that one-on-one "sure kill."

[Ander]

Fortunately, I have only rarely come across a Twisted that's any good. The last one I faced had perfect timing and positioning with Gate. Not one person he ever chased got away. Not one.

[Kaden]

I fought a TF once that would gate into people's bases, get a kill, and then just gate out unharmed. Truly the best use of Destiny I'd ever seen.

[Ashe]

I fought a TF once that would gate into people's bases, get a kill, and then just gate out unharmed. Truly the best use of Destiny I'd ever seen.

I've seen that.

For every good TF, there are 9 terrible ones. He's a harsh learning curve. He's one of those situations where people can't figure out how to beat him, so they whine about him needing to be buffed. And then they enter a new one and they get their entire team trounced by him, and end up going "NERF GOLD CARDS PLZ".

[Kaden]

I completely agree with the change of making Gold Card a single target stun with an AoE slow. It was way too powerful for something that could be spammed.

[Ander]

I hear he's pretty item dependent though, so if you don't feed him, you can shut him down early. What does he go, AP?

[Kaden]

AP is the thing I see most often. His Wild Card is actually one of the strongest skills in the game when you consider MP cost, recharge, damage, AP ratio, and AoE. That makes sense, though, since that is his dps.

I've also seen some people do attack speed and crit, though I've seen much less of that.

[Ashe]

I hear he's pretty item dependent though, so if you don't feed him, you can shut him down early. What does he go, AP?

The same logic can be applied to Yi or Twitch, or even Tryn and other carries - that doesn't really keep them in check.

[Orion]

So does anyone still play this?

I've been having great fun with TF, Janna and Taric lately. TF I've only played attack speed and he's pretty good dps, but maybe I should try AP.

New patch out too. Two new champs? Or three, I can't remember. And a skin out already for Poppy. It'd be nice to see some skins for the older champs. Or a new map.

[Kaden]

I've only played, like, one game in the past week. I'm definitely still interested in playing, though.

I'm a huge fan of Janna, and will be a bigger fan if they ever make Monsoon better.