Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards podcast.
Hey, what's up? It's Eric Brah, voice of Draven, jerks, and velcos, and you're listening to the Forwards podcast, here to help you move forward and lead.
Hello and welcome to episode 436 of the four Wards podcast. I'm your host, as usual. I'm Jack Soman, and I've got with me only one other award today to help you move forward in League of Legends. Crushy's here.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Of course, I am mostly ever present.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah, you haven't quite re earned the title.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's only been a week, so fair enough.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah, takes more time. Alright, guys, we are the four words podcast we stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV Jackson, where I am currently ping ponging between platform and plat two like every day. It's horrible. Crush can be found at Twitch TV. Crush you.
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All right, so we have a couple of simpler topics tonight because it is a two person show and we're, we don't want to blow all the good topics when it's just me and crush, right?
[00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: We're going with that as the explanation.
So our first topic is, other than listening to the Forwards podcast, how can you stay up to date with trends regarding the champions that you want to play so that you are not living in the past. I'm going to use a couple examples here of trends I've noticed recently.
Quinn's seem to be building purely Thalady now, starting with a unholy hydra or whatever it's called. The profane Hydra.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: I don't know where this build came from, but it is everywhere. Every quinn I see is playing it.
And volibears now seem to be built in top lane specifically seem to be building rod of age's flicker blade into tank, which is really goddamn weird.
If you can make it to the like third item, it's really goddamn effective too.
And I don't know where these builds came from. So we're gonna have a discussion about figuring out how to learn what you should be building on your champion. Because if you're playing it, you're not gonna see it in your games because you're playing that champion.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: So the volibear build I know of, it's because of jack of all trades. That rune. It is specifically for top lane. Volibear, it does not work out of the jungle.
It takes too long to get the stats you need for deck of all trades.
And basically the reason for it is that your passive procing from your claw lightning damage scales on AP scales, which heavily on AP.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Let me break this down for you guys.
Your AP scales, both the attack speed that the passive grants and has a 50% ratio on the on hit damage. So every two AP is one on hit damage.
Yeah, I know. Literally just starting with a Doran's ring is enough to push your ap high enough to get 6% attack speed per stack instead of five. So it's also a decent attack speed ratio, right?
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the other thing is you don't need to build any attack speed for it because it does it itself already.
You also get auto resets off of.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Q and W. I believe Q is an auto reset. W applies on hits, so it functions the same as far as stacking flicker blade to ease your cooldowns quickly.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's the reason why the volibear build exists there. The reason why it doesn't work out of the jungle.
You need more tank out of the jungle to not die, and you don't have enough money income to actually deal enough damage with it.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Also, and this is the big one, it is specifically a split pushing build. In the jungle. When you enter a fight, you're typically entering from zero stacks. And you need to get five stacks before you start dealing damage in top lane. You're hitting minions. You're typically entering the fight already stacked up.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: That was the other reason.
It's like there's a reason I'm forgetting. Oh yeah, that's it.
Same as like why Yasuo is annoying to interface, why Lilly is annoying to enter fights with. Because like, you have zero stacks.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Yep. So if you're a volibear player, other than listening to this podcast, how would you ever find out about this build?
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Let me see if it is actually.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: There because I saw it by seeing other volibears playing it a lot because I play too many champions. But if I was a volibear one trick, I would have never known about this build.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: So stat sites that give you builds, OPG u GG, league of graphs, mobile edicts, Blitz, all of those generally will give you item builds that people are actively using.
And they may not be completely right, but they'll at least tell you what's going on and what's happening. Like right now. It does report that the rod of ages flicker Blaze build is what people are building on volibear top.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it looks like some people are trying to build it in the jungle too. To various levels of success.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Still. Still not the most popular or the winningest, but yeah.
So that's, that's, that's one of my two main sources. The other source I have is I follow a YouTube channel that talks about patch notes and builds every so often.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: So guys, when we're made aware of things like this, we do try to point them out, especially on patch note episodes, but we're not always aware.
The key here is diversify your sources. Don't rely on a single podcast or a single YouTube channel to tell you about every build under the sun that's coming up out of nowhere.
Shit changes a lot in the patch. And as, as clairvoyant as we can sometimes seem when it comes to predicting the impact of patches, sometimes we just straight up don't understand the impact a patch is gonna have or underestimate the impact of a change. We ain't perfect.
So.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: The, the YouTube channel that I, that I watch claims they have experts on staff and they seem to at least, and by experts, I mean people who are highly ranked, like grandmaster plus in various roles and so forth.
Mobileytics as well, I know, has a bunch of people who are challenger tier players of various champions, if not one chicks of those champions.
And they tend to agree. So it's usually a good sign.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: So I'm going to tie this into something that we had as our trinket tip last week. An example of how this can look. If you were watching pro play and see all of the Corkies building Trinity Force rapid fire cannon, you could go to a stat site and look up Corki and try to find out what everyone else who isn't a pro player is building on Corki. And I'm going to use op GG as an example because that's what I have up.
His fourth most popular build is the first one where Trinity force shows up, and it's still rapid fire cannon third, not second. Because rapid fire cannon second is just wrong. Suck it, LCS pros.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: I will state that the one of the downsides of using stat sites is that usually they're focused specifically on solo queue. If you're playing in flex with a five stack, or in some competitive arena, it may not be as accurate for you.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yes, that is.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: That's the only reason I can think of the pros doing that weird ass quirky build, because they shouldn't be doing it.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Honestly, the pros lose to shopkeep more than you'd think.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Well, but here's the thing, is that also, one of the things that is almost always true is that there are champions who are meta and pro that are not meta in solo queue. Yes, for example, Nidalee don't. Don't.
Unless you're like a little one trick, don't play Nidalee.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, and if you're thinking of becoming an Italy, one trick don't.
There's better AP junglers. You can one trick.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: She.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: She's one that scales not just with your own skill, but with the coordination of your team.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: That like, that's the issue. That's why Nidalee is such. So good in pro is because she's very good at hitting high damage. If she could guarantee her target isn't moving, which in pro, you can do that.
You have your team, you tell your teammate you're coming and they stun them for you. And then you hit the hit the long skill shot. Boom. Lots of damage. You can't do that in solo queue, so that's just a thing to note and keep track of. And make sure you remember that just because it's good in solo queue doesn't mean, or good in pro doesn't mean it's good in solo queue, and vice versa. Is true.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: So just to round things out, I did decide to check one other stat side. I went to League of graphs to look up Corki. League of Graphs does show more Trinity force quirky than op GG does.
Still doesn't have any rapid fire cannon second Trinity Force Corki. But the most popular build is still very much the like full, like just lethality in ad with an infinity edge after the collector.
So don't, don't, don't follow the pros necessarily as a way to stay up to date. They're doing their own thing.
They're also often not on the live patch, although for regular season lcs is.
So this kind of ties into then, the other topic I wanted to discuss, which is when to deviate from what the stat sites are recommending or what the game is recommending you to build.
Well, since we just used Corki as an example, maybe a correct time to deviate is when you're playing in an organized play. Maybe you're in a league or you're playing clash and you have four other people that you trust and are communicating with, and you're gonna play something that is more organized, play specific, such as Nidalee or Corki with Trinity Force.
I'm gonna use an example from my recent solo queue games, and this is gonna be a bit contentious, but crush, I want you to hear me out fully before you go trying to rebuke this, okay? I think recommended skill order and stat sites are wrong for Rammus.
Just wrong. And here's why you should not be playing Rammus unless the enemy team is auto attack heavy. Just period. You should never be blinding Rammus. You should be picking him after at least three people are showing, and at least two of those are auto attack heavy champions.
Every single ram sic. And as a matter of fact, all of the recommended stuff says to build thornmail first. Says to Max Q first.
I think both of these are wrong. I'm gonna start with the Q. I think putting a couple points in Rammus Q is totally fine. Rammus Q is his powerball. It lets him zoom around the map. It scales down the cooldown as you put points into it.
This is good. You can zoom more often. It does not make you zoom faster. And that's the important thing I want to emphasize there. The speed that you zoom at is based on your character level.
However, I'm going to posit an alternative to the Thornmail rush that I think is just better. It's sunfire.
The reason being when you are getting Thornmail first a, you don't have a ton of armor, and the Thornmail does not deal very much damage unless you have a lot of bonus armor. Matter of fact, on its own, Thornmail gives you 22 magic damage on hit.
Now, admittedly, Rammus scales his own armor when he hits ball curl, but he only scales it by 35% at rank one. And you should be maxing ball curl second, not first.
So let's give it 30 damage on hit because we're scaling up your armor by 35%.
By comparison, sunfire aegis costs the same, has more health no, same health. That's right, they nerfed it has ability haste. Remember I mentioned the Q cooldown? Sunfire has ability haste, so you don't need to put as many points into queue and I'll get there. Why? That's important in a moment.
And sunfire does on its own 20 damage per second to everything around you and scales with your bonus health early game no one has a lot of attack speed. Monsters are only hitting you about once a second. Champions are only hitting you about once a second. The damage of these two items is comparable, but sunfire gives you ability haste, so you're in ball curl a higher percentage of the time. You can taunt more frequently and you don't have to put as many points in Powerball.
And sunfire continues to deal the same damage regardless of whether the enemy is attacking you or not.
Thornmail does literally nothing the moment the taunt wears off if they stop hitting you.
Speaking of the taunt wearing off, for some reason every stat site has Rammus maxing his taunt second or third.
I think this is wrong again, tying into I don't think you should be putting too many points into powerball early.
You don't want to put points into the defensive ball curl early. It only scales the percentage multiplier on your armor and mister, you don't have a lot of armor and mister early, so scaling the percentage doesn't do a lot.
But scaling your taunt increases the duration that the target is taunted and increases the attack speed that Rammus gets. And for those who don't know, when you're in defensive ball curl, you're multiplying your on hit based on your armor. That is his passive. That's what his passive does. It gives you just on hit damage on auto attacks based on your armor, it gives it a 50% more multiplier while you're in velcro. He does a meaningful amount of auto attack damage with just sunfire Thornmail. Cause you still do want the thornmail second. Typically with just sunfire thornmail, you're auto attacking for over 100 bonus damage a hit with the passive, so that attack speed feels really good. It's a massive clear speed buff to max the taunt, and it means that when you go in for your gank, you're taunting them for 2 seconds instead of 1.2 seconds. That extra 0.8 seconds is the difference between the person being able to flash out of the follow up CC and the person dying.
So that's my case for why the stat sites are wrong on Rammus. They're building the wrong item first and their skill order is whack.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Okay. Did you know?
[00:17:33] Speaker A: No. Okay. Is just leave it right there. Just okay. Cause it's Rammus. Okay. No.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Right. Right. So caveat. I don't play Rammus a lot. Did you, were you aware that his ultimate does more damage based on how many ranks of Powerball you have?
[00:17:48] Speaker A: I don't care about the ultimate damage.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: The ultimate is a reposition tool to jump over minions so that you can actually taunt people.
Like, I realize that's very dismissive, but it really just.
I'm not ulting for the damage. And it also only changes the impacts. Damage. It doesn't change the ongoing damage.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it also. If you're in Powerball, it knocks them up if you're in your. If you're in Powerball when you ult.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Yes, but that's the same for any rank.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: The Powerball also stuns the things that you're hitting in the jungle. It doesn't just taunt them.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Yes, but again, does not scale with rank.
Literally all the powerball. True, but rank is the slow percentage after the powerball and the impact damage.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Yes, but you could do it twice as often if you actually skilled Powerball first.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah, but Powerball cancels defensive ball curl, which you sit in for literally 10 seconds and the camp is dead by the time your ball curl ends.
If Powerball didn't cancel ball curl, I would agree.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: That's the key. Is it literally casting powerballs so you can recast it to get that damage again turns off your reflect damage. That is the whole way you clear camps.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: I'd have to try some of it for, for context.
There are, let me see, 3004, seven, 3000. There are 3000 games where the skill order is not taunt first and there's 84 that it's taunt first.
Maxing. Yeah, there are some.
There's a couple of them that are a little more common, where they'll put some points into Q but not max it and then Max E instead.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: And I think that's fine. I don't personally like it, but I think that's fine. To put a couple points to reduce the cooldown and then max the taunt so that you have the high impact taunt at a reasonably low level.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah, even then that's six games. Although that was just North America. If I go global, it's got a whole bunch more, but it's still same order of magnitude. It's 30 40,000 games of not taunt first.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Yep. Oh, I know, I know. What I'm advocating for is a niche way that people mostly don't play. But that's why this is the topic of when should you deviate from what's recommended. So again, I'm advocating for doing this when you're against a master yi, when you're against a tryndamere, when you're against a kai'sa or a zaya, someone who is heavy auto attack based and is going to murder themselves on your taunt.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's why you build a thornmail.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: But Thornmail doesn't really do more damage early than the sunfire does. And it's worse for your clear.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: It kind of does if they have.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Healing early, but most people don't because Thornmail does include the healing reduction that there is no comparison for sunfire.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Let's see.
Oh, there is that. There's the emulate stacking damage 60%. That gives it to close enough, I guess.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's within the same general range of DP's. When people don't have a ton of.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Attack speed, it's in the same range of, in the same general range of DP's. If you don't take into account Thornmail's damage from them hitting you, basically.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: No, I'm taking that into account then.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Ramus's on hit is better from Thornmail.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Because it has 20 more armor. Yeah, yeah, I can kind of accept that.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: I still think at least 20 better because remember, Rammus increases the effect of armor. So any armor, yes, any armor you get is going to be increased even more. So.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Okay, so here's the other thing about Rammus then that I'm gonna put out there. And this is counterintuitive as well. I don't think you need more armor items than just sunfire and Thornmail. I think that's plenty. I think building stuff like frozen heart is trolling yourself because you still need to be able to survive. And if you over invest in armor then you're just making their lord doms way more effective.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Generally speaking, the cap is three armor items and the third armor item is usually some sort of utility.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Quote random armor item because it reduces crit damage.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Randuins, dead bands and Jack show are like the three that you should actually be building.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Yeah. And Jack show is just nuts on Rammus in general.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why you build Jack shows, because then you, I just, then you have any magic item in Jack show and you're done.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: I just cry when I see people build frozen horn heart on Rammus because it literally reduces the damage you do when you taunt them.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah, don't build frozen heart on Ramus.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: Like, the entire time.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: You want to punish people who have high attack speed, not keep them from hitting you. It's a different concept.
Yeah, I was wondering if, so I was looking up how gold efficient the two items are.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: And they're, they're comparable. Um, they're both, for the record, neither of them are gold efficient. Both of them are sub 100% gold efficiency because their passive is supposed to make up for the missing money. Um, Thornmail is less gold efficient. Uh, and that's because it's a grievous wounds item. Basically. All of them are underpowered.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Uh, Thornmail specifically is underpowered, and the reason nobody takes it first is because you can't force people to attack you unless you're Shen or Ramus.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: And that's, I think they're the only two champions who jet, who actually, like, normally build Thornmail just as a course in their build.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: I think Ramus is the only one who always should be building Thornmail, basically.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Right. Always.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: I do agree that he should always be building Thornmail. I just don't think it should be literally your first item.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Let them build some attack speed so that you're actually doing damage when you reflect the damage back.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Right. Only, only Rammus is ever supposed to build thronemail first.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: I think I will say, though, just prisoners in general, if you've never played a master Yi or Rammus, one of the most satisfying things in the world is watching a master Yi ult and go in on your teammates and then taunting him and having him die from full health before the taunt expires.
It's so funny. Cause Master Yi gets bonus on hits, which means he takes bonus thornmail and spiked ball curl damage.
It's so funny. He melts himself.
That's why he's my counter pick into Master Yi is just hi for 2 seconds, you die.
And Master Yi don't typically build. Interesting. I wouldn't have thought Shen would be on that list because you're usually losing a lot of the taunt duration to them running to you from your dash, which isn't the case so much with every.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: All five of Shen's best builds on OpDG have thornmail in them.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: It's got to just be because he winds up being the person who has to build heel cut more than for axe Robin lynch because his taunt only lasts one and a half seconds. So it's shorter than Rammus's taunt once you put three points into it. And because it's a dash frequently half of that duration will be spent with the enemy just chasing after Shen before they actually start hitting him.
Yeah, and also he has a dodge zone built into his kit that is counterintuitive with the taunt, so you have to not use it to actually deal the damage.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: The other people that I see that build Thornmail are malphite and Ornn.
And I mean builds every game.
Just Malphite is second or third and often starts a bramble finishes at sunfire, then goes to Thornmail.
Orn is usually second, is usually second or third. He loves jocksho a lot, so it's usually second with Ornn.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: It's gotta be more a function of the people that he's playing against in top lane. He needs one probably cause it's not a particularly stat efficient tank item. And Ornn's whole shtick is that he makes stat efficient items even more stat efficient because he boosts the stats from them.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: He boosts, let me make absolutely sure.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: He boosts armor health and magic resist.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: He does not boost health.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: Yes he does.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: That's what I was just checking. That's what I was just checking on. He does not boost health as far.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: As increases his bonus armor bonus magic resistance and bonus health by 10% from all sources. Further increased by 4% each time he upgrades a legendary item on the passive for a total increase of 30% to each stat after the maximum of five upgrades.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: That's crazy because in, in the tooltip it does not say health.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's all three.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: Interesting.
But on the wiki it does say health.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Then.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: I don't know why Ornn builds Thornmail so much.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: I have no idea.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: But because usually if it's a top lane matchup thing, you'll see bramble finish item, finish item thornmail.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: So then that ties into the same topic of if you're playing orn and you're not against an auto attack centric team or enemy split pushing top laner. Don't build a thornmail just because it's recommended.
Like if you're up against a rumble, Thornmail's gonna get you killed. Cause they do magic damage and are not auto attack heavy at all.
Build like a holo radiance into jack show against those kinds of champions.
Something in that vein. Not necessarily those specific items, but like don't just mindlessly follow the bill like tanks are. I think the worst case of please, please, please do not just follow recommended items because recommended items do not know what you are up against.
Yeah, like Riot. Riot will put on the recommended in game like good against so and so. It frequently is not. It's just what people are building when the other champion is in the game. Not necessarily against that champion.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
The only other thing I want to talk about on this topic of deviating from builds, mostly it comes from familiarity with the champion.
I've played nocturne enough at this point that the standard build for him at this point is stridebreaker into experimental hex plate and then a third item.
Knowing which one of the three of the item you want third depends on the game state.
Frequently it's black cleaver because you need to go shred some armor for your team. But if instead you're just murdering people, you can go into eclipse or axiom arc. And if you having a hard time living, you go into death's dance. There's a bunch of options for nocturnes or sterics.
Steraks is also possible.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: It's one of those things where if you get really familiar with the champion, you can deviate the build as a counterpoint or counterexample. Some champions really can't deviate their builds. And that is another. For another example of champions I play, it's Lilia. Lilia has to do blackfire, Liandries and probably Rylai's.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I do think that Liandry's is better as the first item for junglers building those items generally because it turns out monsters have a lot of life, so the landry's burn hits them really fucking hard. That's why it doesn't also have the bonus damage to monsters that the other one does.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Ability haste is for Lilly, for at least Lilia. Specifically, it's the ability haste on blackfire torch.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: Fair enough.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: But yeah, something you can't really deviate from, which is kind of unfortunate, but it's a thing. It happens. ADC's are usually the ones that have that problem.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So I was thinking of another time where it's think about what the enemy has is I had a game recently where the enemy team was basically all magic damage. They had a smolder and then a bunch of magic damage.
Here it is. Let me read this enemy comp to you. They had Cassiopeia, Karthus, Gallio, smolder and Maokai.
Guess how much, mister?
[00:31:28] Speaker B: My team built one item because they're dumb.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: My nasus built a maw and a spirit visage.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: That's actually good. That's actually correct.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: So spirit message is correct. Ma with no other ad to back it up is fucking terrible because the lifeline shield on it scales. With your ad, my singed belt and negatron cloak.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: You really should have built a force of nature.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: That would be great, right? He built a dead man's plate, but not a fucking force of nature.
My. My caitlyn built nothing.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: Well, that's fine.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: She should have built a maw, probably. She was at four and a half items. She should have had a mirror.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: She's had four items. Yes.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: And my Renata had no mister at all. She built a glacial buckler eventually that. I don't know what she was going to turn it into.
Needless to say, we lost this game because I, as a brand, had the highest mister on the team with both a banshee's veil and another negatron cloak.
Cause I was gonna build a fucking Kaina Krukerin at that point because I had enough damage.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: For the love of God. Consider the enemy team comp when you are considering your build. Do not build armor against a team that is full magic damage. And do not build Mister against a team that's full physical. It doesn't benefit you. It's a waste of stats. Even if the item is otherwise very efficient for you, strongly reconsider. There are occasionally times where it is still correct to build a spirit visage, for example, even if the enemy team doesn't have any meaningful magic damage. But it's rare.
So, yeah, tanks, I think, are the place where recommended is the least useful. Because you really do need to just take into account what type of damage the enemy deals.
Okay, let me give our trinket tip and then let's get some listener questions done.
Our trinket tip this week comes directly from my solo queue because of course it does, which is a don't tilt your teammates. If you don't have anything nice to say. Don't say anything. And don't spam ping, people. Guys, I had an ash in solo queue. Who would spam ping, beg for ganks nonstop. This was a rammus game that I played, and we did wind up winning the game. I ganked for her three times because the opportunities looked good. Got kills, got assists. She got fed. She was then winning her lane on her own. I didn't need to go there if the enemy jungler wasn't there.
So I went top lane to fuck over their tryndamere.
When I am in the middle of successfully diving and killing their tryndamere, this ashe starts spam pinging me for assists and question marks like I literally just killed the guy and I'm now walking out of the turret with still half health. What the fuck more do you want from me?
I literally never came by again. I never ganked for that ash again because if that dude was losing his mind after I won his lane for him, I had no reason to invest further in him. I proceeded to chain gank the tryndamere. I ganked mid several times and killed a brand and we won the game. The ash played well, to be clear. Like this dude did his job, but he was so toxic and so abrasive with his spam pinging and his crying for her ganks. I muted him after that gank, top lane.
I felt like the game got a lot better after that.
Don't be that ash.
Don't tilt your teammates.
It's not worth it. You gain nothing by being a jerk.
If I was like half the junglers that I see when I'm not playing jungle on solo queue, that ash doing that would have caused a rage, quit, and it would have literally lost the game.
I see that so often.
Or the dude will spend more time typing than playing and he'll get caught out because he's not paying attention because he's typing at the other guy.
So just don't.
That's it. That's the entire tip. Just, just don't.
Okay, now that I got that off my chest, because, holy shit.
Let's finish out the questions we got from Grundy nine.
So Grundy's question four kind of ties into the topic that we had.
He calls this one which item, when he says, over three years ago, you guys had an excellent episode about items and you explained why Bloodthirster was actually best against tanks, that you get to hit them so many times, you quickly heal back all the damage they do to you. It was a real epiphany for me before that episode. I just thought it was the best item in the game and should be built against everyone. Damage and healing. I thought in my PvE mindset what could be better. You also further explained different styles of fighting, trading like the length of engagement with examples like when Draven would want bloodthirster versus when Darius would want it, or when its useful in a quick trade versus a long trade. Id like to ask you to rehash this discussion for me because clearly I still dont get the true value of different items in different situations. So what are your top three items for a quick trade versus top three items for a long trade? When I went in as an AP voli up multiple levels and got stunned and accelerated in under a second, I realized I still dont understand how damage in this game works. I just thought I could stat check them but a single stun meant I got no w healing, no riftmaker omnivamp and I was dead instantly.
Yep. So that is, I think the number one mistake people make when it comes to itemization is not taking into account on any champion that's supposed to cause ADC's. And some mages are kind of exempt from this a little bit. How do I survive the CC so I can then continue to do my job right?
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Because the answer for mages and aegis is you don't. That's the fun part.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Mages can maybe have zhonyas or banshees as options, but ad carries barely even get those options.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah. You have to just not get hit by it.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So but for melee champions, especially bruisers like volibear. Yeah. This is the weakness of that riftmaker or not Riftmaker, that rod of ages flicker blade build that we mentioned before is it just takes one stun and they kill you.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: So the answer for itemization then is it is very easy to over index into resist stats, but it's very easy to under index into resistance stats. You need some amount of armor slash magic resist to be able to duel people as a melee champion.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: I'll also say there are specific items in the game that are like built made for surviving CC.
Death Dance is an example where you can get CC'd and get hit by a lot of damage, but because of how death dance works, and it gives you a lot of time to actually take all that damage, the CC will wear off by the time before you die, typically. Most of the time. Most of the time. Right.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: And a great item to pair with it that's also good against this kind of stuff is steraks, which gives you tenacity so you RCC'd for less time and gives you a giant fucking shield when people try to burst you so that you're really hard to burst.
Which means that by the time that stun ends, maybe you can actually. Then get your w healing and your riftmaker damage off and not die instantly.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Steric Samara like that.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: And shoots now that the shield on it isn't complete crap.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
The other one I was thinking of was Banshee's veil. Doesn't exactly keep you from taking Cc, but they keep you from getting hit by long range poke cc.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: I guess Banshee's veil is invaluable against champions like Karthus. That might be ulting you when you haven't been hit otherwise. Or against champions like Ashe, where they initiate a fight with a big single spell.
It's a lot less valuable against champions like Ezreal that are spamming poke at you every second and a half.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: Right?
[00:40:19] Speaker A: Cause one of those qs is gonna hit knock off the Banshees veil and then they can fight you. And every time he hits you, it resets the 32nd timer before Banshees veil comes back up.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: Which is my number one pet peeve with banshees veil, by the way, is the fact that its timer is reset whenever you take damage, whereas other similar effects are not.
Zhonyas Cooldown doesnt get deferred back to 90 seconds every time you take a hit.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: I would contrast those items that allow you to survive CC chains or burst damage to other items like Randuin's omen Thornmail force of nature that they do their best work over a period of time where they're better than the first set of items, assuming you don't die to the initial burst.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: They take time for a fight to stack up and actually take effect.
Jack show, I think.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah, Jack show is like the poster child for that. After 5 seconds, you get 30% armor and mister, I believe.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: Yeah, gargoyle soulplate's gone now, right? Doesn't exist anymore.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: Doesn't exist anymore.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: Yeah, gargoyle still play was an example of an item that used to do that to defend against burst, but it doesn't exist anymore.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: It also had the downside of being an active when some of the other ones we've listed just passively help you win your burst. Yeah, but yeah, so that's more where I wanted to go with this is instead of listing specific items, if you are playing AP voli, you're gonna get bursted. If they have Cc, it just is what it is.
So he has a follow up question of what other lessons about itemization and teamwork should I be learning from this experience?
Um, well, you're playing AP volibear, so I assume you're split pushing. Which is then the lesson should be to watch your minimap, be conscious of who is not visible and assume that they could be showing up where you are.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: Cause frequently, especially as top lane, the guy who's cc'ing you and blowing you up is not your direct lane opponent. It's when the mid laner comes and blows you up or the jungler comes and holds you in place while their top laner blows you up.
So be mindful, pay attention to the minimap ward buy control wards so that you uh, don't get caught.
Also, just cause you put uh, arrogance as one of your examples of things to learn. Uh, don't get cocky. Just cause you killed a dude five times already doesn't mean you can just mindlessly tower dive him.
Yeah, I realized that volibear is literally like the tower dive champion, but pushing your lead too far is a good way to throw your lead.
Alright, last question from Grundy.
What next? Right now my favorite stat is cs per minute and I am mostly playing ad bruisers in the jungle. I like to itemize for very fast clears. For example, tiamat and Triforce are go two items and focus on outcing my jungle opponent. I enjoy trying out some non meta junglers and this year ive been playing garen, shyvana and trundle as 80 fast clear bruisers. Sometimes I can be as high as nine or ten cs a minute, but this doesnt mean im necessarily getting better at league, just better at farming. Does my myopic focus on csing lead to a logical next step for me to level up my jungling game?
I love the way that question is worded.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Um, if you're hitting nine or ten cs a minute, that's actually really good for a jungler. Um, usually that means that either you're, you're taking lane farm or you're taking the uh, enemy jungle, uh, camps on on often?
[00:44:19] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Uh, because I think, let me see. You can do. It's a two minute reset and you get four cs for it. Playing the full jungle gives you 16 every two minutes.
So by default, junglers hit eight cs a minute if they're like being extremely efficient and killing it every time.
So nine or ten is good for context.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Each of those regular camps takes two minutes and 15 seconds to respawn.
There are four of them.
That means every two minutes and 15 seconds you can get 16 cs from your own jungle. And then you get the buff camps which spawn every five minutes. And I believe scuttle crabs are on the same timer as the other camps, they're just in the middle.
I think so, I think so.
And then a scuttle crab. So if you're getting ten cs a minute, yeah, you pretty much by definition are getting cs other than your own jungle.
And that's the part that is you're able to exert your influence and demonstrate your mastery of jungling. Because if you're just clearing your camps and then clearing your camps and then clearing your camps, that's not useful.
Don't just clear your own camps, please.
Um, I will say if you are, if you really enjoy the just clear fast, that's your main focus. Play nocturne. Just play nocturne. He builds bruiser. Right now you're building 80 health items and he literally is the definition of just farm until you're old's up. Then gank with your ults, then go back to farming until you're old's up.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
If you're farming this well, then the next step is to find the gank opportunities in between the farm paths that you've taken.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Or invade and kill the enemy jungler opportunities.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: Or invade and take their camp opportunities, because most of the time, until you're up in plat or so junglers very, very, very frequently will gank with their camps up.
[00:46:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: And that means you could just go take them on the other side of the map because, like, it's the doubt. So there's this constant problem of jungling in that the most visible junglers, the ones that gank lanes and get kills and so forth, are usually inefficient. But because they're so visibly on the map, you don't notice it as much.
But if you're doing your thing, clearing your. Clearing your camps and the enemy jungler is ganking and getting kills, you can't be content just taking your own jungle. You have to be taking theirs as well and punishing them for their mindless aggression.
Once you get up the plat, they start being better about clearing their camps and then ganking or only leaving camps up on the side that they're ganking so that they can go kill those camps and you can't invade them. But until you're up that high, you could usually find somebody leaving a camp up across the map.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: Yep.
Alright, thank you for all the questions, Grundy. We look forward to your next novel.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: Yeah, some more novel.
[00:47:58] Speaker A: Our next questions come from DJ MacDonald, who writes. Hey, y'all, first off, love the podcast is a new player of about two and a half months. It helps me catch up to speed quick when dealing with new patches or new buffs, nerfs, etcetera, even though a lot of it flies over my head. So yes, I am a pretty new player currently. My favorite lanes are number one top and two mid. I mean, Garen and Galio at the moment, but I'm thinking of making a crazy different playstyle switch to singed because it's something about his kit calls to me. It's super different and kind of in its own league, and I tend to like things that are not your typical.
What are any tips, tricks, or advice you have on playing him correctly and what in your minds are good builds for him?
Alright, I'm gonna start with the number one mistake people make on singed, which is thinking that they always have to proxy farm.
Yes, he is good at proxy farming.
You don't have vision and the enemy can actually fight you. It's a good way to feed.
[00:49:02] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: The love of God. If you're going to proxy farm un singed, you need to be buying control wards, you need to be putting down yellow wards, and you need to vary up your position and timing so you're not always just catching the wave in the same spot at the same time on every wave, so that the enemy is constantly left questioning.
Don't make it easy on them.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
Sid doesn't take jungle camps, does he?
[00:49:37] Speaker A: He can.
He's one of the top laners where it's like he's okay at it, but he's not amazing at it. And early, you'll just take too much damage.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:49:50] Speaker A: But, like, once you have your liandries done, which you should be building Liandry's first. Almost every time I'm singed, it's fine if you have downtime and are not being harassed for it to take camps.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: So, yeah, you should pretty much always be building Liandry's un singed.
You should pretty much always be building Rylai's second or third un singed because he doesn't really need to build a lot of offense, but he needs to build some. And both of those are offensive items that give him the utility he needs and have health on them.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:50:34] Speaker A: Those items have almost. They literally have as much health as actual tank items because, like, deadman's plate has the same health as Liandry's.
Rylai's has more health than sunfire or thornmail does.
Other than Rylai's and Liandry's, you should be building tank.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Like, just straight up as far as runes go. It looks like Conqueror is the most popular rune for him, and that makes sense to me. I could also see an argument made for phase rush, especially if you think the enemy might actually be able to oppose you on waves.
So you can just, you know, have your poison going auto attack, flip them, and zoom the other direction.
[00:51:21] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Because, holy shit. Will you zoom when you do that?
[00:51:28] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:51:30] Speaker A: Um, neither of us is a singed main, so I don't know how much more than that we can really help.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's my problem is I don't really play play singed that much. I know, I know. Whenever I see him, it's annoying because you kind of have to go gank him, especially if he's proxying. If he's proxying, you have to punish that. You can't just let him do that for free.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: All right, I have a caveat. When your top laner is someone who scales well and can handle just tanking the waves and killing them so they're not losing cs under turret, let's hinged proxy. Who gives a shit? You can get more done elsewhere on the map, and your top laner is going to be happy to just free farm.
Most top laners do not fit that bill. That's going to be champions like Fiora or Jax.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe Camille Nasus.
[00:52:25] Speaker A: Nasus is a big one. Like, let those champions just enjoy their farm lane while you win the rest of the map.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: Yeah. As sins. Do not proxy against Nasus. He likes that.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah, he gets tanky enough very quickly. Like, you can do it level one if you can get away with it. But after level one, he's tanky enough and does enough damage. He literally takes no damage from the minions and is just like, cool. Now I don't miss a single one.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: Don't do that.
[00:52:52] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: Okay, so my last pit of advice for singed, then it ties into the how to stay up to date that we talked about at the top of the episode, which is, uh, find singed specific streamers or youtubers watch their content. They'll tell you when the singed build changes. They'll tell you tips and tricks on how to play him. Well, that would be a way to learn more about singed than us. The people who don't actually play singed, but we see him in a lot of games and have played him occasionally, can really help you.
So DJ MacDonald has a follow up question, though, which is, what are our favorite champions that are different or out of the box from others? And what champions have the strangest playstyles or abilities.
[00:53:44] Speaker B: Ugh.
[00:53:45] Speaker A: So I'm gonna start with strange Azir.
Azir's playstyle is fucking weird because he summons soldiers and then auto attacks to command the soldiers to strike for him. So he's like half marksman, half mage in a weird hybrid of the two.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: Um, different or out of the box? Uh.
I like playing ziggs in the bot lane.
He doesn't. He doesn't. He. You play him differently than other ad carries because you just kind of just wipe the wave and don't care.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: Yep. And to be clear, that's not like he builds different or out of the box because you build them the same as you would in mid lane. It's just he's different for bot Lane.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
Usually out of the bot lane, I'm forced to go. The Liandries build.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: I don't. I go that.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: Yeah. It's been so long since I played. I don't know if that's sure. They're not anymore.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: Basically, for Zigzag, the build is one of the lost chapter items. Make sure you get death cap by item three.
[00:55:04] Speaker B: Basically. Yeah.
The. The choice was basically whether you do the.
It's basically choice between archangels or liandries in Bot lane. Or at least it was. I don't know if it still is.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: Because it's basically you either stack a tier or you don't.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: And when you say liandries, do you mean black fire torch?
[00:55:28] Speaker B: Right now it would be black fire torch. That's how long it's been since I played ziggs in the bot lane.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: There you go. Important distinction. Liandry's is a very different item now, although he does build it sometimes.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: Core. No, BGG. It's all the time. It's just which order.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Liandry's is just his best bet to make sure he can actually deal meaningful damage to tanks.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That was basically what it was is when I was playing Ziggs at the time, it was, is there a tank on the enemy team? I have to go Liandries, or else I'm. Or else I have to admit that I'm not going to be able to kill that tank.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:56:02] Speaker B: Which sometimes is fine. Sometimes I have a jax on the team. It's like, yeah, he'll just kill the tank. It'll be fine.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: Yep. Alright. So I have a champion that is different or out of the box. And he's literally one of the oldest champions in the entirety of League of Legends Udyr can put all of his points into any of his different abilities. He does not have an ultimate. His ultimate is his passive.
He's weird.
[00:56:28] Speaker B: See, I was just.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: You have ad builds, whether they're assassin or bruiser. That Max Q and you have tank builds, that max rub.
[00:56:38] Speaker B: Yeah, he used to have just straight AP builds. I don't think he does anymore.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: No, shouldn't he goes a liandry's in the tank builds if he wants to deal damage.
[00:56:49] Speaker B: I am curious if he could do blackfire liandries like the other AP junglers.
[00:56:52] Speaker A: But he's just too squishy.
[00:56:53] Speaker B: I don't think so. Yeah, AP Doodra was always the squishiest build and at ad is also squishy. So that's saying something.
I thought you were gonna go for like thresh cuz his ultimate is called the box.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: But no, he puts himself in the box, literally.
[00:57:14] Speaker B: He then gets out of the box sometimes and likes kicking other people out of the box too.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: Fair enough.
All right, I'll accept that one.
[00:57:26] Speaker B: Well, I mean, obviously the correct answer is lucian top. That's definitely the best out of the box champion.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: There you go, you just smashed the lane. And that's that. Who needs a box?
Alright guys, this is episode 436 of the Forwards podcast. I've been Jack Soman, he's been crush you and I hope you guys have a great night.
[00:57:52] Speaker B: Bye.
[00:57:54] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Forwards 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 the forwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer them on the show.
