League of Legends

[Kole T. Merr]

It means your runes will suck, because they aren't t3 runes, and you will be replacing them in 4 levels.

[Tyr]

Ah, sorry, was not updated on your level. Definitely wait till 20+ before getting runes.

[Kami]

I'm level 17 I think and I haven't even bothered to buy any runes at all. Maybe I'll start picking some up once I hit 20.

[Belle Hibiki]

I have a Crit rune page and an Armor rune page (I was dumb). Gives me 7% crit and 17 armor, respectively.

Not a huge deal but not tiny, either. Crits have helped me out big time.

[Kaden]

Flat Armor aren't awful runes. Give you a nice bit of early-game survivability. There are some "standard" rune choices depending on the type of champion you go with. Melee DPS most people go with Armor Pen reds, Dodge yellows, and MR/level blues. For Casters, MR Pen reds, MP/5/level yellows, and CD redux blues. Tanks are a bit more versatile; my tank page is Armor Pen reds, Armor/level yellows, and MR/level blues. I run flat HP quints on all my pages, which isn't uncommon. Armor pen, MR Pen, CD redux, and attack speed quints are also relatively common amongst pages.

What you definitely want to do before buying runes is figure out what type of champions you like to play (caster or melee carry or tank or whatever) and focus on buying runes to fit that. Also figure out why you want a particular type of rune. Flat HP quints, for example, give a pretty significant boost early game, but end up being largely irrelevant past level 6~7. Make sure you know why you want a specific stat so you don't end up buying half a set of flat runes when you realize you really wanted scaling. That's a bitch.

EDIT: Crit can be an awesome stat early game, especially on someone like Mundo who can give himself a nice damage boost from the get-go. It's basically the only stat that's "hidden" from the other player, which can be a huge boon in those low-level fights. Getting an extra crit or two can mean the difference between first blood and a 15 second respawn waaaaay too often.

[Kole T. Merr]

Sona's pretty sweet. Not sure how often I'll end up playing her, because as you all know by now, support is not my playstyle, but she's fun to play. Get some cooldowns and some mana, and just run around pressing QWE.

[Ashe]

I love her "Pentakill" skin.

EDIT: I don't like Manamune nerfs already

Manamune
Combine cost increased to 700. Total cost is now 2110.
Unique passive conversion percent dropped to 1.5% from 2%
Unique passive changed to: Each time you attack, you gain one maximum mana (3 second cooldown.) Each time you use an ability, you gain four maximum mana (3 second cooldown.) Bonus caps at 1000.

That change in combine cost makes it a bit rougher to rush as your first item for sure.

[Belle Hibiki]

Pretty much everyone I know and play with from Penny Arcade has decided to just get a BF sword and some other mana efficient item.

They apparently only used it on a minority of champions on a couple builds anyway.

Yay for caving to whiners.

[Kaden]

I don't think it's so much caving to whiners as it is keeping things on the same relative scale of gold efficiency. A lot of people said that the Manamune wasn't worth it and I completely believe those people to be wrong. Take it as your first item and not only would you end up with ~70 AD from it by the end of the game, but you'd never have to think about mana again, which is still important past the laning stage; nothing is more frustrating than someone being in kill-range of your skill, but they get out because you didn't have the mana.

Most people ignore the fact that Manamune gives you plenty of MP/5 and a huge pool when talking about it, like all it does is AD. That's stupid. They make it sound like it's more efficient to buy a BF Sword and then something like a chalice. It's not. That's basically the definition of inefficiency. You also can't rely on blue buff being available at all times to handle mana issues.

Point being, Manamune gave way too much for the mere 1910 (or whatever) gold that it cost. Doesn't make me any less sad to see it nerfed.

[Belle Hibiki]

No Kaden you see anything I think is balanced is totally fine and everything else is just inferior plebeians bleeting their last.

:colbert:

[Kaden]

Fair enough.

=(

[Belle Hibiki]

Sona is pretty cool. I was impressed by her support power.

[Belle Hibiki]

Amumu beat me so clearly Amumu is overpowered and should be nerfed tia

[Waffuru]

Mundo is a bad champion

[Belle Hibiki]

Meh, he's not top tier, but I wouldn't call him 'bad.' He's exceptionally good at the early game. If you can leverage that well, you can turn it into a late-game advantage - denying experience/last hitting, gettin' golds, etc.

Issue being, of course, that if the enemy can neutralize you early (we were kind of even on the top because Sona had to take over for when Katarina died once or twice) you don't get that chance. He's just not great at killing tanks sans Madred's (in my experience).

I'm just ... Yeah. Not pro with him. I play him a lot because he's the champion I'm most familiar/comfortable with and I don't want to go into a game with you guys and make it even worse by playing someone I'm not decent with.

I guess I could try to play someone else, but I haven't found a champion that I really click with. I've had some success with Akali and Shen, but then I've also done awful with them, too.

[Mr. Zhu]

I've seen some really bad fucking Sonas today... Sigh.

[Kaden]

I really like Sona. Haven't decided how I want to build her yet, though. Stacking more auras seems like a pretty obvious choice. I'll probably still get the Locket first, since it's ridiculous, and then move on to Aegis or Soul Shroud or... I dunno... Frozen Heart, Will of the Ancients, or Starks, depending on team comp.

[Belle Hibiki]

So what mumble do you guys use? Wanna PM me it?

[Orion]

I laned against a Sona and MF as Cho with an Ez. We were fucking owned. Fuck new champions.

[Kaden]

Having played a handful of games with her, I tried both Phreak's build from the spotlight (and other such "support" builds) and also straight AP builds. I think I like the AP a little better. Her ratios are pretty good (I imagine they'll be the first things to get nerfed) and ~200 AP gives her some serious burst, both in healing and damage.

How I rank her skills has largely been dependent on who I'm laned with. If I'm with someone who can push/harass just fine on their own (MF, Urgot, Morde, etc.) I find ranking R>W>E>Q to be the most effective. If I'm laned with someone who needs to focus on farming, Sona can zone really well by ranking R>Q>W>E. The Q hits pretty hard (and since it prioritizes champs, you won't steal CS) and paying attention to your Power Chord procs can give you deceptive amounts of damage. At 2 charges of Power Chord, I found it very effective to auto>Q>power-chord-auto.

Also can't count the number of times I used her ult to save a teammate, interrupt an enemy champ, or CC an enemy team a la Amumu.

EDIT: If you're laned against her, forget poking/harassing. Just farm. The heal has a low enough CD that pokes are virtually meaningless. Like trying to harass Mundo or Mordekaiser.