The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 434: Making Things Easy

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the four wards podcast. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, what's up? It's Eric Brah, voice of Draven, jerks, and Velkoz. [00:00:13] Speaker A: And you're listening to the Forwards podcast. [00:00:16] Speaker C: Here to help you move forward and lead. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to episode 434 of the Forwards podcast. I'm Jack Zoman. Despite that voice crack, yes, it is, in fact, me. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Listen, I wasn't gonna say anything, as usual. [00:00:49] Speaker B: And that other voice you hear is my only co host tonight. That's right, it's free shooter. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Hello, I am here. Shockingly, the ever present crush shoe is not right. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Unfortunately, crush is sick, so we are running a two person episode this week. We all hope crush gets better soon. We wish him well. Yes, he'll be back. It's just a cold, as far as we're aware. But, guys, we are the Forwards podcast. We stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV. Jackson. Free shooter can be found at Twitch TV. Freeeshooter. That's right. There are three e's and free. And even though he's not here this week, I'll plug crush anyway. Twitch tv, crushyou, if you want to watch him stream. Guys, we have news this week, so as usual, send us your questions to theforwordsmail.com so we can answer them on the show. We have one big listener question that we got this week. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Real quick. Thank you to that listener, theforwordspodcastmail.com. [00:01:48] Speaker B: Did I not say that? [00:01:50] Speaker A: Nope, you said the forwards. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Well, I'm a dumbass. It is the four wardspodcastmail.com, professional podcasters, I promise. [00:01:58] Speaker A: Woo. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Speaking of professional podcasters, guys, hosting isn't free for podcasts, and we don't currently have any ads or sponsors or anything. So, uh, we would greatly appreciate it if those of you who can and are interested would support us. We've set up a new Patreon. Patreon.com, the Forwardspodcast, so you can support us. $1 a month just tells us you love us. We appreciate you. $5 a month will get you an exclusive feed with some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. So when we get together, before we actually record the podcast and we're discussing what the hell we're gonna talk about, you'll get that audio. This week, we came in more planned than usual, so there will be a free bit of this audio. That is me and free shooter shooting the shit for about five minutes. Yeah, that will go up on the Patreon for everyone to listen to. Whether or not you subscribe, that's the sneak peek. And then last but not least, if you are so generous as to give us $10 a month, we will shout out your name during this introduction of every single episode for as long as you remain subscribed to that tier. So if you want your name in lights, metaphorically speaking, because obviously, this is an audio medium, there are no lights. That would be the tier for you. [00:03:19] Speaker A: And, hey, even if you just want to do that once, that means you get four episodes, a whole month of us shouting you out. [00:03:25] Speaker C: Yup. [00:03:25] Speaker B: And we appreciate it, because, like I said, hosting is not free. Fortunately, we got to get some help with the first year of hosting, but we need to get enough to sustain it. [00:03:36] Speaker C: Yep. [00:03:36] Speaker B: Or it's coming out of our pockets to keep the show going, and I don't want to do that. So if you. If you like what we do and you want to support us, patreon.com the forwardspodcast all right, let's get to our actual topic tonight. Like I said, we came in a little bit planned and prepped, which is unusual, which is, uh, I believe last week we had a listener question that we turned into a topic for this week of, uh, what are the easiest champions in each role to pick up? So we're interpreting that very specifically to mean champions with the lowest skill floor, champions that within a game or two, you can learn well enough to be useful. These are not necessarily going to be champions with low skill ceilings. There may be a ton you can do to develop and demonstrate proficiency on these champions. [00:04:25] Speaker A: There's actually a couple champions on our list that actually have relatively high skill ceilings, I would say. But their floor is also low, so there's just a large range of ability. And, yeah, we're specifically focusing on ease of entry. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Yep, exactly. So there is a little bit of a caveat here of I don't think either of us really plays top lane or support very much. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Um, I play a decent amount of support as, like, my kind of. [00:04:57] Speaker B: Okay, so top lane is our only. Like, we're doing our best here. Bear with us. All right, so let's get that one out of the way first, then. If you are looking to pick up top lane and you want a champion to learn top lane with, frankly, the easiest recommendation that is pretty much unanimous is Garen. [00:05:16] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:16] Speaker B: Because he's just a stat stick. He's extremely brainless. [00:05:20] Speaker C: Mm hmm. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Like, you run at people, you spin, you hit r. Yeah. [00:05:25] Speaker A: The hardest thing to learn with Garen is, at what point will my ult actually kill them? And that it takes, like, you'll pick it up in, like, a game or two. Yes. Yeah. [00:05:42] Speaker B: You know, so we do have a couple other examples of easy to learn champions. If Garen is not your style or just you don't like him. Cause I get that he's. [00:05:53] Speaker A: I get that, too. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Unlikable. The first one of which is the only actual true tank on our list, which is Poppy. Poppy is extremely simple to learn. Her skillshot is her q. That is like a melee ranged skillshot. [00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I hesitate to call it a skill shot. [00:06:13] Speaker B: Right. And her ultimate, which is, if you charge it up, it is a line skillshot. The rest of her kit is an aura around her and a point and click dash that shoves people. [00:06:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:06:27] Speaker B: There's skill in positioning yourself so you can slam them into walls, but she's extremely easy to pick up. She's extremely straightforward. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:06:36] Speaker B: And I would say, and she slams. [00:06:38] Speaker A: People into walls with her ult. Like, there's a couple mechanics that go into it, but from a, like, again, talking skill floor, if you just press and release her ult and do the instacast, like, it's pretty effective that way. It's just a targeted knock up to add into your combo. Like, you don't have to worry about. Oh, who should I be knocking out? Like, trying to fake it? Nah, you can just. I just want to cc this person for an extra couple seconds. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Yep, absolutely. So the other two we have, and then I'll throw it over to free shooter to read off. The next group is a couple more, like stat checky fighters. And for top lane, the stat checky champions are the easy ones. And what I mean by Stat checky is they get a lead and then they just kind of run you down. [00:07:28] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:07:29] Speaker B: And that's trundle and set. Both of these are just melee fighters that make it hard to escape from them and just beat you down with damage and are good at fighting other fighters and tanks. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Yep. I would say Trundle is also the, like, if you want to learn how to, like, split, push in that aspect of the game, like, you know, you're not really big on groupie and team fighting. Trundle is, like, you know, the easiest of that archetype of champions to learn just because if, you know, he's a. Like we said, he's a stat check. He to his ult, he just steals stats from his opponent. And I have lost games to just the. Trundle never left top lane and pushed all the way to our nexus because he just kills towers. Really quick with his big bonk stick. [00:08:20] Speaker B: Yes. Yes, he does. And as for set, just make sure you don't build the blade of the ruined king. Like, please don't just build him bruiser. Lots of health so that your w hits like a truck and you actually survive fights. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Mm hmm. And, like, you also don't. Yeah. And you don't need to, like, always hundred percent, optimally be like, oh, I wait till I'm at one Gp, and then I press my w for the biggest possible damage. It's like, nah, if they've, like, used their movement ability to get in town to you and hit you a couple times, just press w and hit them back. Like, set was like, I played a couple bruisers before set, but he was one of the first ones. I was like, oh, this guy's simple, and I get it. [00:09:10] Speaker C: Yep. [00:09:13] Speaker B: All right, you want to suggest some junglers that our listeners can pick up if they want to learn jungle. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Sure. So I would say a number one. The easiest jungler, the one that, like, basically everyone should probably learn first in jungle, is a mumu. Just because he has a good combination of a pretty brain dead, easy, clear, good, clear speed, and really good and simple ganks with his q plus at level six. You know, you just get in the middle of the enemy team, you press r, and that's it. You've started a team fight. [00:10:00] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. [00:10:05] Speaker B: Mumu is just. He's the perfect mixture of extremely straightforward, extremely powerful, especially in low elo, and really hard to miss execute on. [00:10:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, his q is, like, such a long stun, and then comboing out with the ult. Like, even if you do that on just one person, you know, people are gonna see it. People are gonna follow the next one. I would say I'm gonna go with Vi just because, again, has a pretty good clear and really good ganks. And then her ultimate, it's just point and click. You are unstoppable f that person in particular. [00:10:52] Speaker C: Yep. [00:10:53] Speaker B: She is. She is the epitome of just you. You. I don't like you. If there's one person on the enemy team that gets fed, Vi is able to just point and click them and say, fuck you. You're held in place while I punch you. Oh, now I'm gonna kick you with the queue. And you just hold them in place for, like, two and a half seconds. And you don't have to hit any skill shots. Cause, like, the queue is guaranteed if you ult. [00:11:17] Speaker A: Yep. And, like, even if you fall behind, you always can just press r on the ad carry or the fed person. [00:11:24] Speaker B: If you fall behind, you can just build tank and be a subpar tank with reliable engage. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Yep. Next up is actually the press. Actually, these next two champions are who I learn jungle on. These are my first two junglers, and that is j four and nocturne. So, starting with Jarvan again, he just has a really simple, clear. You know, his auto attacks do a ton of damage. You put down the flag, it gives him attack speed. Like, his kit is one of the earliest designed and one of the simplest in the game. The only, like, hard part of him is really hitting the flag and drag, but that's you put your mouse on top of the person, and you press e, then Q, and you're going to hit him. So another. He's another one who's, like, never really bad. Like, even when he's a little bit meta proof in that way. If there's times when he's really good, but he's never gonna be the worst jungler in the game. [00:12:23] Speaker B: At the worst, I think Jarvan has ever been. He was like, b tier. [00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:29] Speaker B: With Jarvan, there is one mechanical thing you need to learn, and that is how to do the flag and drag. And it's real simple. You cast e, and then you cast Q on the same spot. [00:12:36] Speaker C: Yep. That's it. [00:12:40] Speaker B: That's the entire mechanic. [00:12:41] Speaker A: Mm hmm. And there's, like, one flashy thing you can do with him to raise a skill ceiling, too. But, like, anyone who's not on zero ping, that's a hard thing to do. I still can't do that. [00:12:52] Speaker B: It also doesn't deal damage. So it has to be a situation where you know that the knockup is enough. So just. Just don't even worry about it. What. What free is referring to is you can flash during the flag and drag to reposition, and if you do that on top of someone, they'll get knocked up. But the knockup doesn't deal the damage. The Q splash deals the damage, and that doesn't get relocated. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And then last up, we have champion. I think, like, basically all of us on the podcast play or have played at some point, which is nocturne, the spooky ghost himself, because he's just, you know, his ganks precincts aren't great, but he clears really damn fast. He has good objective take, and then at level six, you can gank halfway across the map. [00:13:43] Speaker B: I mean, it's definitely not nearly that far at level six, but, yes, you just, uh, nocturne has the play pattern that every jungler dreams of. Oh, my ult's up. Let me make a play. Let me go back to farming. Oh, my ult's back up. Now I can stop farming and make a play again. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Yep. [00:14:01] Speaker B: Like it is. That is the dream pattern for a jungler. If you want to just enjoy your games of you have a clear window where you're supposed to ult and when you're supposed to farm. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:14:13] Speaker B: And you don't gank without your ult. Basically. [00:14:16] Speaker A: Basically, yeah. [00:14:17] Speaker B: There are times you do, but generally, yeah. [00:14:20] Speaker A: Like in the early game, if the top lane is just like all the way pushed up and you're like, full health and coming out, you're like, yeah, yeah, sure, I can come in and fear them. Okay. [00:14:34] Speaker C: Yup. [00:14:36] Speaker B: Alright, so it's my turn again. I'm gonna talk about mid laners. Mid lane is a hard one to recommend because there are not very many low skill floor. Almost everyone in mid lane I would categorize as a medium skill floor. Cause mid lane tends to be heavy on skillshots, heavy on skill combos and interactions. That's just kind of the nature of the champions that exist there. [00:15:02] Speaker A: Mid and bot are kind of both. If you play this role, you have to at least a little bit think you're the main character. [00:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah, unfortunately. So the obvious one I'm gonna start with is Annie. Annie is famously the like, just play Annie. It's fine. She's simple. I don't actually think she's very good right now, but she is like the lowest skill floor that exists in mid lane. [00:15:28] Speaker A: I also think she's kind of another one. Even when she's not good, you're still gonna win games with her. [00:15:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:35] Speaker B: She's still like b tier. She's fine. [00:15:37] Speaker A: And I do also think she's never a champ. That should be s tier, to be clear. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Because she is so simple and so straightforward in a role that usually isn't. Whenever she's s tier, it's cause her numbers are overtuned. [00:15:49] Speaker C: Yep. [00:15:51] Speaker B: All right, so the next couple are more skill shot heavy, and then we got a weird one to round out mid. Like I said, you can't get away from the skill shots in mid. So the skillshot champions we've chosen to go with are Lux and Ziggs. [00:16:05] Speaker C: Yep. [00:16:05] Speaker B: These are both artillery mages, meaning that they are designed to do lots of damage from far away. And some of their kit is designed with tools to play keep away. If you can actually get on them, they probably die. Lux is all skillshots. [00:16:23] Speaker C: Yep. [00:16:24] Speaker B: Ziggs is all skillshots. So these are good champions to learn skillshots with because they're also low cooldowns and very forgiving. By mid game, Lux can literally ult every single wave. Her e is on, like, a five second cooldown. Her q's on, like, an eight second cooldown. She's. You get to a point where you just e waves and walk away. She has a passive that requires you to auto. You need to use it to be good with her, but you don't need to use it to be functional with her. [00:16:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And, like, lux's kit can also be, like, pretty defensive as well, of, like, you know, her w is when you're alone, it's just, you get a free shield. It doesn't matter which way you throw it. You get hit by both halves. Her q could be used as get off of me when you're running in a straight line at me. Her e is a slow, like, everything. But her ult can be a defensive tool as well. Like, there's kind of a reason she's one of the most popular characters in the game, and that's, like, a her design, but also the low skill floor. Like, both are kind of why she is she. Does she have the bow skins now? [00:17:35] Speaker B: Again, she might if she doesn't. She's very close. [00:17:40] Speaker A: Yeah, she. It's like her and ezreal always trading. Like, her, Ezreal and Ari, I think, are the three always kind of flipping around. [00:17:45] Speaker B: That title doesn't surprise me. As for Ziggs, he's extremely spammy with his skill shots. [00:17:53] Speaker A: Yes. [00:17:54] Speaker B: And again, he just has waveclear for days and can just play keep away really well. Basically, with Ziggs, you want to be good at Ziggs, learn to hold the w. Don't cast it for damage. Only cast it to get someone off of you or your teammates. [00:18:11] Speaker A: Yep. Or to blow up a tower. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Yes, or to blow up a tower. That's, like, 80% of how to play Zigzwell other than just land skill shots. [00:18:20] Speaker A: Yep. [00:18:21] Speaker B: So the last one I've put in this list is much less skillshot heavy. It's Malzahar. [00:18:28] Speaker C: Mm hmm. [00:18:31] Speaker B: The entire skill floor of Malzahar is learning how to combo your spells so that you get two voidlings on every cast of your voidlings. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Yep. [00:18:39] Speaker B: Which basically amounts to cast the voidlings before you use the e, and then use a q at some point in the combo, and you'll have two voidlings again for the next cast. [00:18:48] Speaker A: And also, please, before you press r, on someone. Even if you don't have two voidlings, press w. Press w before you press r every time. [00:19:00] Speaker C: Yep. [00:19:01] Speaker B: Absolutely. If you can also press e. But sometimes when you're flash r ing, you really can't. You still should be pressing w. Literally, the only time you don't is if you are flashing over a wall and ulting someone before they escape. So your teammates can kill them. [00:19:15] Speaker A: Yes. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Because you literally can't afford the, like, two frames that it takes for you to hit w before you hit r. Like physically. Cause there's no cast time on w. He's extremely simple. His r is a point and click. It's cc heavy. His wave clear is automatic. Once you get some items, you literally just cast EQ and clear the wave. You don't even need the voidlings. And before you get to those items, like you weq and you clear the wave, he just auto shoves and you. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Get mana refund if youre on something that dies. So hes forgiving in that way. [00:19:52] Speaker C: Yup. [00:19:53] Speaker B: So malzahar is just easy to learn if you fall behind. Most people will still die if they try to dive you and you hit wer. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:20:03] Speaker B: Other thing to be aware of for malzahar. Other thing to be aware of for malzahar. And I'm just gonna share this cause it seems like no one fucking knows this for some reason. His e is refreshed whenever you land a Q or whenever you ult someone. [00:20:18] Speaker A: I don't think I knew that. [00:20:20] Speaker B: You can keep that dot going for a long ass time. I have literally gotten kills because right before the dot ticked out, I landed a queue and reset the dot to full duration and then they died. [00:20:30] Speaker A: So wait, does it reset your e cooldown or the dot duration that's already on? [00:20:34] Speaker B: The dot duration that is already on them? [00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I did not know that. Okay. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Yeah, most people don't for some reason. And it's really strong. [00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:46] Speaker B: Especially early when you have cooldowns still. Cause late game. You can cast all these every 4 seconds anyway. Alright, free shooter. You're the ADC. You get to talk about ADC recommendations for someone to learn. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think the first and most obvious, because she used to be the tutorial champ and I actually don't think she's in the new tutorial anymore, but it's Ash. I have friends that played Ash because they played her in a tutorial and they never played another champion. They just played ashe for four years. She is very easy. Like, you press W for Pokemon once you've auto four times and the queue lights up. You press Q. E is just for vision and scouting, which I think helps you kind of learn to look at the minimap more and then failing everything else. Even if you've been killed a lot, you can always just press r on someone. Her r is a skill shot. It is pretty slow, but, like, it's wide enough that if you're, like, right in front of someone or they've already been hit by something, like you're gonna hit the arc. It's. Yeah. She is kind of the epitome of the first ad carry. You learn, in my opinion. [00:22:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:07] Speaker A: All right, next two I'll kind of do together because I feel like there could be some arguments against these two being, like, simple and easy, but, like, a lot of ad carries kind of always have a little bit more mechanics to them, even if your main goal is just right click. And I went with Jinx and Caitlyn. [00:22:26] Speaker B: I was gonna say, almost every ad carry can be summarized as right click real good. So it's. We had to pick the ones that aren't overly complicated and how they. Right click real good. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, in theory, from, like, a kit perspective, there's might be. I actually don't know if there's easier ones, but, like, you know, jinx is just like, be like, if you're just autoing them and, like, never even pressing your w, you just could still win games if you never hit a single w. I don't think I hit a single jinx w the first, like, ten games I played her, but, like, yeah. The hardest thing for, like, when you're first starting jinx is just don't always be in rockets. Your minigun gives you ramping attack speed up to three stacks so you don't end your rockets. Use mana, so, like, you don't want to always be using. I think that's the biggest mistake I see nujinx players doing. [00:23:27] Speaker C: Yep. [00:23:28] Speaker B: That being said, especially in late game, once blue buffs are getting spread everywhere, you often are just sitting in rockets because you can't safely step up to use the minigun, and that's fine. [00:23:38] Speaker A: It almost actually feels like it becomes the opposite of, like, you start fights with rockets and finish them with minigun, whereas laning, it's kind of the opposite. [00:23:46] Speaker C: Yep. [00:23:46] Speaker A: But her rockets are still great. Poke in laning if you can't be punished. And, like, she's a late scaler, but she's kind of, like, she's immobile, but has, like, the tools to be safer in lane and then on the other side of that coin, this Caitlyn, who has a really good defensive tool in her net, has just a straight line skillshot in her q, her ult point and click. And I think the most nuance comes in her trap usage. But you don't have to be great at using her traps to be good at Caitlyn. You know, you could just kind of put them in a fight, put them in a bush, and if people step on them, you get free damage. But she has the longest base auto attack range of any ad carry, and it's just kind of easy to, like, pick up being good, like she's one of the champs. That's the, like, ad carries that I think is best to learn how to farm on. [00:24:46] Speaker C: Yep. [00:24:48] Speaker B: Honestly, the. The biggest thing with Caitlyn is just make sure you have the presence of mind to throw a trap under someone who has been cc'd or used Zhonyas. [00:24:57] Speaker A: Yes, Zhonyas. Especially, like, the shop always recommends. Hey, there's a cait one on the enemy team. You should build Zhonyas. Cause they have a lot of ad. So if ever someone goes golden in a fight, just press w on them. Do you have enough leeway with the arm time that they're gonna get trapped? [00:25:16] Speaker C: Yep. [00:25:17] Speaker B: That also applies to jinx, by the way. If they go Zhonya's, just throw your chompers on their Zhonya's body. [00:25:23] Speaker C: Yep. [00:25:25] Speaker B: It's less of a one shot fuck you as it is with Caitlyn because she doesn't get bonus damage like Caitlyn does. But it's the same. Like, you literally cannot dodge this. You are a golden statue. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Yep. Um, and, yeah, like, there are times when Caitlyn is, like, bad, but even still, it's, like, rarer than a lot of the other champs. And then our last champ, I think, often has more times when she's not great, but that's just kind of because of her range and that's sivir. And Sivir is kind of one of those examples of it's real easy to farm. Well, on Sivir, once you have, like, an item and even once you don't. Like QW on a wave can basically kill a wave from, like, level five onwards. [00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And eventually you get to a point where just w wipes the wave after, like, three autos. You just like, w auto, auto, auto, walk away. [00:26:27] Speaker A: Yup. So Sivir's a good, like, you know, she's a good champ to play defensive with of. I just want to sit back, I want to farm I don't really want to take a lot of big fights. I'm learning the role. Even if you fall behind, you have basically infinite wave clear. You can just sit under your tower clearing waves until you have items. And her ult can be both a good offensive and a good defensive tool. I think one of her biggest skill ceilings is with her e, but it lasts long enough that if you're just in a fight and press e, you're probably going to block an ability and get a health refund. [00:27:12] Speaker B: The health refund part is the big thing. Like, even if you block a, quote unquote bad ability to block, you still gain health. [00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And I actually think they make, because it used to be a mana refund, and I think them making it a health refund actually lowered her skill floor because you're not as reliant on the mana you get from her e refund in having your q and w uptime as much. [00:27:37] Speaker C: Yup. [00:27:40] Speaker B: All right, we'll take turns on the supports. Let's talk about easy supports to pick up. And I'm going to start with Blitzcrank. Now, I want to be clear. Blitzcrank is a skillshot champion. You have to hit hooks. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:27:59] Speaker B: But unlike every other hook champion, Blitzcrank has defensive play patterns that he can fall back on. And by that, I mean if someone is diving your carry, you can literally just run up and punch them into the air, walk away a bit, and then hook their body to you away from your teammate before they land. So he has a fallback pattern and he's very safe. Blitzcrank pulls the enemy to him. He does not throw himself into danger. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:28:31] Speaker B: These two features combined are why I think he is the safest, simplest, easy to learn, like hook champion. We have one other hook champ on the list. Do you want to talk about him? Free shooter. [00:28:45] Speaker A: Sure. So our other hook champ we put on because he's kind of more like the easiest engage champ to learn, and that's Nautilus. And the reason is because, you know, he is a hook champ, but his hook is a commitment. If it lands, he's not like Alistair, where you're committing, even if, like, you know, you press the button, you go and you're committed. Nautilus, if the hook misses, I mean, if it hits a wall or a minion, you're committed. But he's also relatively straightforward, and he has point and click cc on his ultimate. So he can always say f that person in particular. And his hook is wide enough that it's probably going to hit something, and you're probably going to be able to start a fight at some point during the game. And he's just, again, always useful. You know, it's the nature of a tank support that you're not gonna be as tanky as, like, top laners, even ahead or behind, but even just landing a hook once and dying for it is probably worth it. [00:29:55] Speaker C: Yep. [00:29:56] Speaker B: So we've left out other types of tank supports because I don't think any of the other tank supports that aren't the hook champs are easy to pick up. They're not low skill floor. They all start at medium. Kind of the same problem we had in mid lane. [00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Most enchanters, I would also say, fall into that category, but we've picked a couple to highlight here. The first of which I'm gonna list is Soraka. Here's the thing. Soraka has a skillshot in her q that she needs to hit to be able to spam her heal. If you don't have it, you literally kill yourself healing your teammates. She also has her silence that needs good timing and positioning to use correctly. And her ultimate requires map awareness. But you dont need any of that to be useful. As a soraka. You can literally, as a Soraka, just pick the person whos doing the best on your team, follow them around, and make sure that theyre healthy and silence anyone who dives in on them. Is that the optimal way to play soraka? Sometimes, sometimes not. But it's effective, man. You also then are just using your ult to save the person in front of you. It doesn't matter about the global part of it. [00:31:13] Speaker A: One of my bigger pet peeves in bot lane is whenever my support is just never even with me in the lane to contest, as always, just standing right behind me or, like, far back. The only time that it's like, okay, yeah, you're still contributing is when it's a Soraka. Like, I have actually won a game with a soraka who was a bot. Like, 100% confirmed they were a bot, and we still won that game. [00:31:45] Speaker B: Yo. Um, she's, uh, she's very effective when you don't know what the hell you're doing. [00:31:51] Speaker A: Yes. And still a surprisingly high skill ceiling. [00:31:57] Speaker B: Yep. So let's talk about the one who I think is probably the lowest skill ceiling on our entire list. [00:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be Sona. Um, the way Sona works her basic three abilities is they all just cast in an aoe around her. You do not have to aim any of them. You just press her q and two things take damage. You press her w, and there's a shield and a heal. You press her e, and you get some zoomies. The only part of sona that you have to aim is her ultimate, and it's big and wide and not hard to hit. She also, her passive is an auto attack that, like, is empowered based on what her last use move is. Qwe, you don't really have to use it to be super effective. Or you could just always q auto to poke, and you're good. You're being a fine sona. [00:32:57] Speaker C: Yep. [00:32:58] Speaker B: And again, not a skill shot. It is a right click. [00:33:00] Speaker A: Yep. Her only skill shot is her ultimate. Like, you can just press Q and W on cooldown and hit an alt, and I'll think you were a good sona. [00:33:14] Speaker C: Yep. [00:33:16] Speaker B: All right, so there's. There's some suggestions for champions in each role. Now, this does not mean that if you want to learn someone else, you shouldn't. By all means, feel free. [00:33:26] Speaker A: I will say, I don't think we listed a single assassin that was for a reason. Assassins typically aren't easy to learn. [00:33:34] Speaker C: Yep. [00:33:35] Speaker B: Assassins as a class, are. They start at medium skill floor. Yeah, there's a lot that are not hard, but they're not easy. [00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Even like Nefari, who was designed to be an entry level assassin, I think is still kind of medium tier difficulty. [00:33:52] Speaker B: Yep, definitely. All right, we got a trinket tip. I think crush is the one who put this one in, but we're gonna do it anyway because I think you and I can expand on it quickly. [00:34:05] Speaker A: Sure. [00:34:06] Speaker B: Which is your team has locked in an 80 mid laner, an ad top laner, an ad jungler, and the enemy team has malphite Aramis. What do. There are some AP carries. You can play in the bot lane. Karthus is strong right now. Ziggs is a perennial carry in the bot lane. Just as he is in mid. [00:34:28] Speaker A: He's getting plate and throw in the bot lane. [00:34:31] Speaker C: Yep. [00:34:31] Speaker B: Ziggs has been played in pro in the bot lane. I think this weekend, as we're recording, there was a game. Yep. [00:34:36] Speaker A: There was two. [00:34:37] Speaker B: That was two. I only remember the Karzi game. [00:34:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:41] Speaker B: So Veigar is also a decent choice because Veigar scales with last hitting with his Q more than he scales with levels. All of these champions tend to have poor all in, but they tend to have a lot of Pokemon. And especially in the case of Ziggs, you can still bring the turret destruction that is usually kind of the ad carry's job. So yeah, if you need to bring AP from the bot lane, those are the ones we'd recommend. Alright, let's get some listener questions done before we wrap up for the week. Our first set of questions comes from Jonathan who writes, dear wards, thank you very much for the content and entertainment you bring every week. I've got some questions for you. How do you lane against heavy AP bot lanes such as brand or Karthus? And what picks would you suggest into such a bot lane? Well, I mean, we did just suggest some of these. So, uh, Caitlyn and Jinx. [00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Champs that you can. Honestly, Sivir's a good one too, just because of the spell shield like brands. Big damage is on his w. Um. And that's pretty telegraphed. [00:35:59] Speaker C: Yep. [00:36:01] Speaker A: Um, yeah. The thing you have to remember with those lanes is typically you're gonna outscale them. Like, unless it's like a veegar. Um, they are playing that to get ahead in lane and be more useful in the mid game. So the most important thing in those lanes is not dying. Like, that's most important in anything. But especially in a lane like that, you just don't want to die early. [00:36:39] Speaker C: Yep. [00:36:43] Speaker B: The other thing I can think of is you also want to have a support that is not an engaged support. Typically you want, usually an enchanter because enchanters are the ones that tend to counter mages. [00:36:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:57] Speaker B: The exception being if you are playing an ad carry who's good at all in, like Tristana, then you want an all in buddy and you just murder the mage. [00:37:07] Speaker A: True. [00:37:08] Speaker B: Those are. Those are the two ways to deal with mages is either straight up beat them in the two v two because they tend to suck early at it with an early game stompy champion or play with an enchanter and just sit back and farm. A follow on question and that I think is related was is it ever correct for an ad carry to build hex drinker first? If yes on which ones? Yes. Into AP burst. Burst is the key there. So into Karthus, probably correct. Honestly, hex drinker can save you from his ult. [00:37:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:47] Speaker B: As far as which ad carries to do this, generally the ones that aren't super reliant on crit are delaying getting your crit online by a lot or ones that are extremely self sufficient. Like, I think it's fine on Tristana even though she is a crit ad carry because she has an attack speed steroid built into her kit. So you don't feel like shit when you're building a fucking hex drinker into your infinity edge. [00:38:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm honestly trying to think if there's anyone else who I actually would build it, like, literal first item touchdown is. [00:38:25] Speaker B: The only one that comes to mind for me. [00:38:27] Speaker A: I don't know that I would because at that point I would feel like I'm kind of delaying my power spike so much that like, I would have to be like, it would have to be like, we got camped on repeat and like, the lane is over for me to consider it. [00:38:45] Speaker C: Yep. [00:38:46] Speaker B: And they're an AP jungler as well. [00:38:48] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:51] Speaker B: All right, so Jonathan's next question is a team comp. And we're gonna read off the actual listed champions. But I want to talk about this from a, like, how do you make this decision? Perspective. Okay, so Jonathan's question is playing into the opposing team with Garen, Nocturne, Syndra, Caitlin and Sona. Should one of our team, Kayl, Karthus, malzahar, Jinx and Alistair, build healing reduction? If yes, who? Alright, the thought process for who should build healing reduction in a world where your teammates are communicating and cooperating? That's the important qualifier here is generally going to be mages who are not reliant on specific items. So Malzahar would be a good example of this comp. [00:39:39] Speaker A: In this comp, it's Malzahar. [00:39:43] Speaker B: Tanks. If the enemy healing champions are auto attack based or the enemy champions that you need to cut the healing on. In the case of like, Sona healing up with Caitlyn. Caitlyn is auto attack base so tanks can build it and it works. And then the other consideration is people who can apply it really well. Karthus, for example, is going to apply heal cut to the entire enemy team. Every time he ults, he's going to apply it to most people. Whenever he's in a team fight, he spreads the healing reduction everywhere. So he would be a good candidate. Now, who shouldn't build heal cut? The kale and the Jynx kale because she needs specific items to scale up. And spending 800 gold on heal cut is delaying getting to those items and jinx for largely the same reason. You're either building a subpar item early, which is mortal reminder, or you're just delaying your good items by 800 gold for the executioner's calling. Now, should you eventually build a mortal reminder as jinx? Maybe not. In this specific game, the enemy team is not super heal heavy, but yeah. [00:40:59] Speaker A: If you replace that garen with a Vladimir probably. [00:41:02] Speaker C: Yep. [00:41:03] Speaker B: Or an aatrox, then. Yes. You would eventually want the jinx to also build heal cut because you just need to make sure it's always present on whoever the kill target is. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah. [00:41:14] Speaker B: The weird, she needs her two items first to be relevant. [00:41:17] Speaker A: Yes. The weird thing with ad carries is if the enemy team is like, man carry like two or more big tanks, which doesn't happen a lot, but you really want your ad carry to have the lord doms and not need to build the mortal reminder. Yeah. [00:41:36] Speaker B: Lord doms gives more penetration, it's more damage. [00:41:39] Speaker A: Yes. [00:41:41] Speaker B: So the, the way to think about heal cut is will reducing their healing actually let us win the fight versus building more damage? If they have a thousand life and they heal for 500, that means that's 1500 life you need to cut through. If you build heal cut, that's still 1300 life you need to cut through your heal cut. That 800 gold you spent dealt 200 damage. That's the way you need to think about it. [00:42:09] Speaker C: Yep. [00:42:11] Speaker B: That's why on a champion like jinx, you don't want to just rush it because you do no damage. Who cares that you cut their healing by 40%? You just can't kill them because you don't do enough damage. [00:42:21] Speaker A: I think a last point with heal cut two is with, like, the exception of Maybe Thornmail as a third item in basically every other case, you build the heal cut component and you don't finish it till last item just because Marrella Namakon mortal reminder. And whatever the other ad heal cut is that I don't even remember kempunk chainsword. [00:42:47] Speaker B: Does that still exist? I don't actually. [00:42:48] Speaker A: I think it does. I haven't seen one built in actually a year, but I think it does still technically exist. [00:42:58] Speaker B: It looks like it does, yeah. I haven't seen it in so long, I wasn't actually sure. [00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's like your ezreal needs to build heel cut or a fighter needs to build it for some reason. Like fighters honestly rarely do. And if they do, they're getting the, the, um. Oh, God. Chain vest. Thornmail. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Bramble vest. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Bramble vest. There you go. [00:43:27] Speaker B: Who. [00:43:27] Speaker A: That was a brain fart. Um, they're getting that instead because chainsaw just isn't really good right now. But, um, yeah, basically, besides, like, thornmail, which you should never finish first, but you should always finish the heel cut item last. Just sit on a component. [00:43:47] Speaker C: Yep. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Here's the other consideration for heel cut is it depends on how they're doing their healing. Are they a type of champion. That's just gonna life steal off of every wave. You building Bramble vest as a tank is not gonna change that in any way, shape or form. They can just not hit you. Life steal up and then fight you. Like Bramble vest will not let you beat an irelia. [00:44:10] Speaker A: A mistake I see a lot of people assuming. And actually this team comp is a perfect example, heel cut doesn't do anything against Garen besides people healing Garen, because all of Garen's healing is out of combat. [00:44:27] Speaker C: Yup. [00:44:29] Speaker B: So that's, that's the other thing to consider is how does the enemy apply their healing if they're applying it through PvE? When you're not there to cut their healing, you're not doing anything with the purchase. Spend your gold on more damage so you can kill them when you actually fight them. Or more tankiness so you can survive them when you actually fight them. Yep, my last part, and just cause it's related, this is not directly the topic itself, but, uh, tanks, for the love of God, do not build Thornmail first. I don't care. Even if you're Rammus, don't build Thornmail first. Thornmail scales with your armor. It scales with the enemy's attack speed, and they have to hit you for it to be relevant. Thornmail should pretty much never be before third item. Honestly. [00:45:19] Speaker A: Yeah. The other team would have to have. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Like four auto attackers, four lifesteal oriented auto attackers for it to be second item, and I'd be building something else. First item still. [00:45:30] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, it'd be like what graves, kindred, Fiora and an ADC, something like that. [00:45:36] Speaker B: That's when you go Thornmail second. Otherwise, go it third, if you're Rammus, probably go at second because you're Rammus. But even then, Rammus should be building sunfire first. It's more clear speed, and it'll keep you alive better. [00:45:50] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:45:52] Speaker B: And then go Thornmail second. That's just a personal pet peeve free shooter. And I had a zack who rushed Thornmail in a game before the podcast, and it was painful because he was completely useless and died in 2 seconds. [00:46:05] Speaker A: Yeah, don't rush Thornmail, especially not against Karthus. [00:46:12] Speaker B: Yeah, so Jonathan's last question is, league does not have a very good reputation. However, there are still a lot of nice people who play the game. For example, in the aforementioned game, the jungler wrote that every ADC deserved an Alistar like mine. Do you have any positive recent examples with random teammates to share to show that there is a lot of positivity out there as well. [00:46:31] Speaker A: I actually do. I think I spoke about this last week, but around a month ago now, I was playing with some friends, and they had a friend who was new to the game, and so we all got on low level accounts to play with them, and when we queued up, it was pretty clear that it was like, okay, we're, like, three Smurfs and two actual new players versus, like, some number of Smurfs and new players as well. That was one of the most positive games I've ever seen. Like, both teams were just all in all chat. Like, the people who knew how to play the game were, like, giving tips and helping in chat. Like, they were asking questions, going back and forth. Like, you know, the mismatched lanes weren't just curb stomping each other. They were, like, actually playing it out and, like, letting the, like, newer players, like, take trades without just, like, oh, I'm gonna mechanically out skill kill you every single time. Like, that was one of the, like, more positive, and it happened, like, three games in a row, so it wasn't a one off thing. Yeah, that was just, like, an actually, like, kind of warmed my heart moment of the league community. [00:47:45] Speaker C: Yep. [00:47:47] Speaker B: I don't get a lot of those. Probably just because I'm playing in plat ranked, and people are all egomaniac assholes there. But, uh, I did have a riven who was absolutely an egomaniac asshole who was taunting the enemy. Garen, when the game ended, was like, fuck. I'm sorry, Lulu. I didn't honor you. I should have. God, I wish I had more honors. We had a lulu who absolutely did everything she was supposed to do, protected everyone, was an absolute beast. [00:48:18] Speaker A: Nice. [00:48:19] Speaker B: And it was just that even the asshole who was, like, taunting people in all chat and being a dick was able to recognize. Damn, Lulu, you did work. Thanks. Yeah, that was my recent example. [00:48:35] Speaker A: One of the biggest things is, like, I usually see it in, like, I lay in ranked. I don't see it very often, but, like, I don't know, try and promote. Like, I try and promote it more. Like, if my. If, like, it's easy in a bot lane of, like, you get a two v two kill. Just put a well played in chat. Like, just try and promote that positivity. Like, if you happen to see a nice kill across the top lane, just, like, make a quick comment about it in chat and, like, just try and spread that, because, like, there should be more of it in the game. And, like, whenever it does happen, like, it does stand out. And it can make people like, honestly, it can make people play better if they're like, oh, my teammate's not a dick. Like, there are times when I definitely play worse because I'm like, man, my teammate's an asshole. I don't want to win this game. [00:49:28] Speaker B: Cause it's like, yeah, alright, I've shared this one before, but I remember a game I played with Sparrow four, a listener to this podcast where we had a thresh and a. I don't remember what the ADC was, but the ADC was an egomaniac and the thresh was useless and the ad carry was threatening to rage quit because he wasn't getting ganks. So Sparrow was like, hey, I trust you to just like, hold your lane. I'm just going to camp for this idiot. Because if your age quits, we're guaranteed to lose. So he takes his, like, 40 Evelyn and just gang spot, and then walks into the shadows to heal, and then gang spot. And then walks into the shadows to heal, and then gang spot. Arthresh, who was very useless, apologized for how bad he was, and the enemy team kept blowing cooldowns on him to try to kill him. And then we'd win fights. So combined between Sparrow getting really fed on his Evelyn, our ADC un tilting because he actually got the help he was demanding, and the thresh being good bait, we wound up winning this game. We still reported the ad carry at the end for threatening to AFK, but we managed to turn a toxic situation into a win. And no one other than maybe that ad carry reported the threshold. He admitted he was having a bad game. It happens. Everyone has bad games. So, yeah. All right. Grundy has sent us a whole slew of big questions. We don't have time to get to all of them, but we're gonna get to the first one because it's a very straightforward answer, and I want to make sure that, you know. Cause unfortunately, uh, it's not a great answer. So Grundy nine writes. Grundy nine here, long time listener. I've written in multiple questions on the discord over the years, but as one listener, eerie, wrote on this week's episode 433, I'm heating the call. Question one. Past year's tracking op GG no longer shows all games played past the current season. Example 2023 only shows ranked games, so I can't refer you to that. Is there a more comprehensive database that has records of normal games? Yeah, it's called the Riot game servers. They don't expose normal games to the API anymore. Long, long time ago, you used to be able to see all of the normal games someone had played. They don't make that public anymore past a certain point. So now you can only see, like, the most recent normals. [00:52:13] Speaker A: I will say, while we were going into this, I just, like, did a little searching on a couple of the sites I have bookmarked. The one that goes back the farthest, as in, I'm still scrolling league of graphs appears to go back pretty damn far and still has normals in it. [00:52:32] Speaker C: Yep. [00:52:32] Speaker B: And that's. That's where the. The follow on to that question is, is the way league of graphs does that is they're storing the data themselves. [00:52:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:52:41] Speaker B: So you can go back on normals quite a ways. I'm looking currently 150 days ago for me, 220 back. Yeah, I don't know how far back it goes, but basically what they're doing. [00:52:55] Speaker A: It looks like it goes back a year because it stopped at 320. [00:52:58] Speaker B: For me, that makes sense. What they're doing is they're just holding the data themselves that they pulled from Riot's API when it was fresh. Yeah, mine stops at 357, so. And they apparently go back one year. Riot, I don't even think goes that far back. I think it's 30 days is all you can pull from the API. So unfortunately, you can't really get historical of normal games. If you want a history of your games, you gotta do it in ranked so that the stats are tracked. [00:53:30] Speaker A: Yeah, sucks, but it makes sense. It's expensive to hold that much data. [00:53:38] Speaker C: Yup. [00:53:38] Speaker B: Even, even just the simple, like, match data, not the actual, like, replay, you still gotta hold creep score, gold kills, deaths, assists, champion items. Like, it's still a lot of data to put in the database. When you consider that there are literally millions of games of League of Legends played every day. [00:54:00] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah, it's something I like. Before my current job, I would have been like, oh, come on, it's just text. How much could it be? I now understand how much it could be to have to store that. [00:54:15] Speaker C: Yep. [00:54:15] Speaker B: I mean, just conservatively, if we assume every game maybe is like 100 data to store, that's probably lowballing it by a lot. And that's still going to be a gigabyte a day worth of raw game data for just a million games a day being played. Yeah, that's how much these things scale rapidly. That's why the data just doesn't exist. Riot probably still has it archived somewhere on their internal servers. Yeah, but even then, they might not have it going back too terribly far because it's just not relevant to current business anymore. [00:54:56] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Honestly, the fact that you can still see, like, your season scores going back many years is kind of wild. [00:55:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:15] Speaker B: And even then, like, league of graphs only shows me as far back as season seven. I don't see my season four plat anymore. [00:55:22] Speaker A: OPG. I can still see all the way back to my season four silver, which is the first season I played ranked. I don't think I could see anything about, like, games. I could just see that was my season rank, which. [00:55:38] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:55:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:39] Speaker B: Op. GG. [00:55:41] Speaker A: Oh, I can see. I could see, like, my champion, like, games played win loss back then, at least. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah, they. They keep as much as they can, but, like, they know I played in season three. They have those records. They don't have anything for season two. I definitely played ranked in season one and two. [00:56:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:04] Speaker B: It is what it is. [00:56:05] Speaker A: And even that it is ranked games, it's not normals. [00:56:09] Speaker C: Yes. [00:56:10] Speaker B: Honestly, it's incredible to me that I can see that. I played 200 games of Kha'zix in season three and had a 3.09 KDA. [00:56:18] Speaker A: Yep. [00:56:19] Speaker B: And five pentakills, apparently. Like, honestly, the fact that those stats are still available eleven years later is insane. [00:56:28] Speaker A: It's one of those things of, if you really want to start tracking that for yourself, like, it's not too terribly difficult to learn how to do, like, an API call to just like, your own, like, spreadsheet. I think actually crush might do this or did at one point. So if it's something you want, you're like, and are like, a stats person like that, just start tracking it yourself. [00:57:01] Speaker C: Yep. [00:57:03] Speaker B: Or, I mean, there is the other easier answer, which is, uh, just play Lucian top, then who gives a shit about stats? You just win every game. [00:57:11] Speaker A: Hell yeah. [00:57:14] Speaker B: All right, this has been episode 434 of the Forwards podcast. I've been jax for free shooter. Have a great night. [00:57:21] Speaker A: Patreon.com, theforewordspodcast. [00:57:24] Speaker C: Yep. [00:57:25] Speaker B: And theforwardspodcastmail.com. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Bye. [00:57:29] Speaker B: See you guys. Thanks for listening to the Forewords podcast. If you liked what you heard and you want to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com, the forwardspodcast, to give us some support. We appreciate you and of course, listeners, please don't forget to write your questions into [email protected] so we can answer them on the show.