The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 440: Initiation

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards podcast. Hey, what's up? It's Eric Brah, voice of Draven, Jerks, and Velcaz. [00:00:13] Speaker B: And you're listening to the Forwards podcast, here to help you move forward and lead. Hello, and welcome to episode 440 of the four Wards podcast. I'm your host, as usual. I'm Jack Solman, and I've got with me three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got free shooter, of course. [00:00:49] Speaker C: Hello. I'm still here. [00:00:52] Speaker B: And then, believe it or not, listeners remember last couple episodes, we've been badgering you guys. We put out the call for new hosts. Well, we got some, so we're gonna introduce them here in just a moment. Our first new host. You've probably seen him around. If you've been around any of the Trinity force discords in the past, he's been around for a while. It's Mike of many names. [00:01:16] Speaker D: Howdy. Howdy. You probably know me as Mike of many names. You might know me as relay. You might know me as just Mike. Too many names out there to call. [00:01:27] Speaker B: He has been around the block, our other new ward. You actually have heard his name on the show before, too, because it's pillow pet. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Hello there. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. [00:01:42] Speaker D: Yes, indeed. Thank you very much. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Thanks for joining, for answering the call for hosts. So it's not just me and free shooter every week. Yep, it is greatly appreciated. [00:01:52] Speaker C: Also, I don't know if we actually said it on the show. Crush isn't gone. He's just, like, taking a step back for a little while. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah, he's not playing league, so he doesn't have anything to talk about and doesn't want to commit the time of making his wife deal with the kids to record the podcast when he has nothing to contribute. [00:02:09] Speaker D: He has rescinded the ever present. [00:02:11] Speaker B: Yes. Literally, shortly after, he was like, haha, I should be the ever presents. And now he's not the never present. Yeah, now he's the never present. [00:02:24] Speaker C: Hey, hey. [00:02:25] Speaker B: It is what it is, and that's okay. We will welcome him back whenever he decides to play League of Legends again. We love crush you here. [00:02:37] Speaker C: Yes. [00:02:37] Speaker B: So we're gonna. Before we get into all of our introductions, of letting these guys tell you what they're all about, let's get through our top of the show stuff. So, first of all is our shout out shoutout to Codex Ninja and new host pillow pet, for supporting us at the shoutout here on our patreon. Thank you. And that's right. We do have a patreon. It can be [email protected] theforewordspodcast. If you want to support the show, $1 a month just tells us that you love us. Dollar five a month gets you access to an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work each week before the show and whatever bullshit we decide to talk about for five to ten minutes while we're prepping. And $10 a month will get you that exclusive feed and also get your name in lights. You can join Codex Ninja and pillow pet to get shouted out at the front of every episode. We really do appreciate all of our supporters. It helps pay the bills. Hosting ain't cheap, y'all. [00:03:40] Speaker C: Yep. Helps keep the lights on. [00:03:42] Speaker B: So thank you. Thank you very much. And last but not least, listeners, we need more questions. We got no new questions this week, so. That's right, you're getting, you're getting grumpy, dad Jacks. Now send us your questions to theforwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer them on the show. I want to see at least one question in that inbox next time we record. Guys, please send us your questions. All right, who wants to go first on introducing themselves? [00:04:15] Speaker A: I can. [00:04:16] Speaker B: Okay, pillow pet, take it away. [00:04:18] Speaker A: So, yep, my name is Pillow Pet. That's with an oh at the end instead of an o w. I got creative with it a long time ago when I first made it, and I think it was around season one to season three of league. That's just how I have my name on league, and I just know that's when I start playing it. I made it to get after my buddy and annoy him because he hated the stuffed animal. Pillow pet been playing league. I was playing off and on from then. I was nothing every serious until about season nine. Season nine, I started a little bit unranked. I played support at that time. Braum, he was my man. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Justified Brahm is a badass. [00:05:05] Speaker D: He is. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Always enjoyed it. I tried my bit of making streams back then or YouTube videos with terrible hardware, so it never worked. But now I play a little bit more competitively. I've slowed down a lot recently. I had a son. He was born back in February, and he takes up most of my time and my wife takes up the rest of it. So when I get some free time, I like to jump on and play some league. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Sounds good. And yeah, you, I think you and I reconnected because you wound up being my opponent in a ranked game. [00:05:46] Speaker A: That is correct? Yeah. I was playing Darius top lane against a Renekton and I played Darius into Renekton because I wanted to know. I usually play Renekton top and I was like, well, if this guy beats me, I learned how he beats me and now I know how to play against Darius because I cannot beat a Darius as Renekton or I get a free game and get to walk all over him. [00:06:14] Speaker B: And unfortunately for me, you kind of did in fact get a free game. [00:06:19] Speaker A: It was fun. All right. [00:06:22] Speaker B: And then Mike, tell the listeners about yourself. [00:06:25] Speaker D: All right. Mike of many names is mostly thing because I play a lot of wow for a long period of time. And so because of the amount of characters that I'm jumping between, no one can ever remember what I'm called. Between that bouncing between league accounts, it just became easier for everyone to call me Mike. And everyone knows somebody named Mike, so I may as well be the mike of many names. [00:06:48] Speaker B: There are someone named Mike on the show? [00:06:51] Speaker C: Yup. [00:06:54] Speaker D: So I've been playing league since a little before season one started. Barely played any before that. I was pretty big into Dota and then tried to do a couple heroes of new earth. Tried to do Dota two wasn't as fun as league. Played a lot of ranked in seasons one through four, slowed down in five and six, picked up again, and then ive been slowly playing less and less ranked and more and more Aram for a long period of time. Im happy to play normal games, but its come to the point where im one of those people who doesnt like to play solo queue, specifically solo queue. If youve got a friend, im more than happy to play. But the amount of toxicity that has sort of become rampant nowadays has really dampened my enjoyment of playing solo queue alone. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Understandable. [00:07:47] Speaker C: Games are more fun than friends. [00:07:49] Speaker D: That's true. Yeah. I have no main role. I play anything and everything. I'm one of the people who has every champion and will play any champion. So I'm outside of Jax, probably the person who has the most experience across all the pieces of Ord. [00:08:05] Speaker B: You've also literally been playing as love as I have because your origin story of you were a dota player, you played some heroes of new earth, and then league is the one that stuck is literally the same story for me. [00:08:17] Speaker D: I played three games of Heroes of New Earth and there was a game where I started the game and I was hit in the fountain by something the enemies hit me with and I went, fuck this. [00:08:28] Speaker C: This game is not for me. [00:08:30] Speaker D: If you can hit me in a fountain at level one. [00:08:33] Speaker B: No, that's hilarious. Alright, so now that we've gotten to know our new wards a little bit, we decided what better way to give them an introductory episode to the show than do a little bit of a ranked check in. It's been a while. I know it's been mentioned on the podcast that I've achieved and have subsequently lost my goals. So we're gonna check in with everyone and see what their goals are and what their progress is. So I guess I'll kick it off. My goal this season was to get back to Emerald. Cause I made Emerald last year and then failed to make it back there in split one. I've promoted myself into emerald from plat one four times in the past five, three weeks. [00:09:27] Speaker D: Oh, in the past three weeks? [00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's been a wild ride. Um, I'm currently, I think plat 290 lp or some shit like that. Um, whenever path of exile releases its grip on me a little bit, I'll probably be back in emeralds like that week. Um, yeah, my goal was to get past emerald four, see if I can push it further, see if I can make diamond. And so far that is not panning out. Despite the fact that even in Emerald I'm still absolutely destroying the enemy mid laner most of the time because holy fuck, are they bad relative to how much better I've gotten. Yeah, that's where I'm at. So uh, free shooter, how's ranked been treating you? [00:10:23] Speaker C: Well, funny you should say that. I've been playing, I played some ranked today which is the first ranked games I've played in about a month. I got placed at the beginning of split two and then you know, took a little bit of time off, played some games here and there. Duo'd a bit with people today. So I'm in platform I, you know I, when I took a break it was after finally getting back into plat and my goal is to once take it back to Emerald. We'll see if I have time for that because work has been very busy over the summer and will only continue to be so through the fall. But yeah, at very least I would like to maintain plat throughout the rest of the year. For me the biggest struggles have been laning phase. Like if I get to late game even with like going even or slightly ahead, like I mean I'm an ad carry main. That's where I actually have fun playing the game. You know, being either slightly behind, slightly ahead or even. I mean stomping out of lane is great. When it happens, kind of rare for me, just of like my playstyle. It basically has to be like, you know, me and my support just being completely in sync going at it. But yeah, I had some struggle lanes today. I went one and three. [00:11:55] Speaker B: Hear me out though, cause I've been queuing ad carry secondary lately because it turns out all you need to do to win games as a bot lane is be the bot lane that doesn't feed. [00:12:07] Speaker C: Yeah, that hasn't been going great for me, but I've been feeding a lot. I've had some int moments. [00:12:16] Speaker B: But you know, despite that, I looked you up. You're 15 and six, my friend. [00:12:23] Speaker C: Oh no. Yeah, I started this season like on a high note. Like I was doing real well at the start of this season. It's just been like, honestly, literally today I had a very int day. I don't play ranked all that much, but um, yeah, it's been going okay. [00:12:44] Speaker B: Fair enough. So what your goal is to make Emerald then? [00:12:48] Speaker C: Time permitting, yes. Failing that, maintain plan. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Fair enough. All right, Mike, you said you don't really play ranked. [00:13:00] Speaker D: No. And realistically right now, like, I would play if I had someone to play with that I could feasibly queue with for more than ten games because of placements. So my goal right now is if I can find someone to do ranked with, I would love to do some ranked with someone. I'm perfectly happy to play all the time, but I just can't, can't do the solo queue on my own. The last time I did rank that went beyond placements. I believe I was in gold, I think so. [00:13:33] Speaker B: That sounds right, yeah. [00:13:35] Speaker D: So realistically, the goal is if I do eventually get a partner to play with again, that's the baseline. Need to get back into gold baseline and then see where we can push it. [00:13:47] Speaker B: Sounds good. So, pillow pet, I mentioned briefly that you and I ran into each other. So, uh, I tell the listeners about what your, your goals are and how it's been going. [00:13:59] Speaker A: So I'm currently platinum two at 67 lp. My goal is I would like to reach Emerald time permitting. I don't know, I think we got a while till the season's over. [00:14:15] Speaker B: Two months left, I think. [00:14:17] Speaker A: So that's at least enough time for six more games, right. That should get me up to Emerald if I win them all. Like I said earlier, looking. I started getting serious into league about season nine. I started off in gold three and then after that it was just gold four, gold four, gold four. Then 2023, season one, I was silver one. This is when I stopped playing as much as I was. And then season or split two, I was platinum four and then I ended platinum two. So far on this 2024 split, I played some rank flex too, here and there. I'll just solo queue into that to try out some new champions or something around that line. And I think last year I ended up in Emerald something or another for ranked flex. But you know, nobody really ever counts that. But it's still ranked, so. Yep, still goes on the board. [00:15:20] Speaker C: You still get the chrome before it. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Exactly. But yeah, I'd like to make it to emerald. I'm a top lane main. I was looking currently sitting at a. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Oh, sorry, go ahead, mister top Lane main. I want to know why your most played champion in flex and your second most played champion in solo queue is brand. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Oh. Cause brand is broken. It doesn't matter how many times they nerf him, they could take his damage completely away from his e. That is not the point of e. The point of e is to be really annoying, slow you with the liandry's or was it Rylai's and let him hit all the rest of his abilities and kite you out for eternity. And you can never catch him. And he's just really annoying his whole kit. So I got tired of being stomped by him. So I said, I'm gonna pick him up and play him. [00:16:15] Speaker B: So are you playing him top lane? [00:16:17] Speaker A: No. [00:16:18] Speaker B: Okay. [00:16:19] Speaker A: No. Mid and jungle. If I decide, like in rank flex, I'll play mid lane or usually q jungle or mid lane. If I'm playing with a group of friends or if I'm solo, practice out new roles. [00:16:33] Speaker B: So that's your like fallback champion when you get your secondary or auto filled roles? [00:16:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Cause he can play literally every other role. [00:16:42] Speaker B: Sounds good. All right, so the other. The other topic we had for tonight was we wanted to talk about Aurora a bit because we mentioned last week she's out now. We've had a week to experience playing with and against Aurora. And I want to pick your guys brains on what we should be advising listeners to do with her. Because my impression of her is that her damage kind of sucks, but she's obnoxious and hypermobile. What do you guys think of Aurora? What kind of champion is Aurora? What does she even do? [00:17:31] Speaker D: So Aurora, for me, feels like you're going to be building her at least early, similar to Kassadin in the sense that you don't care about raw AP early, you care about health, so that you can move around a lot and you care about cooldown reduction so you can get your spells off going in quickly. You not really building raw AP on her because most of her damage isn't an AP ratios. A lot of it's in her passive. [00:17:56] Speaker B: So what does that passive do? [00:17:59] Speaker D: Her passive has sort of two parts to it. There's the baseline part, which is when you do three hits, you get sort of a stack of a thing. And when you do three hits on a champion, it does percent max health damage to them. She also gets a little bit of a boost speed buff. [00:18:16] Speaker B: Okay, and is that three spell hits specifically, or do auto attacks also count? [00:18:21] Speaker D: Auto attacks do count. [00:18:23] Speaker C: All right. [00:18:24] Speaker B: She's all about stacking up. [00:18:28] Speaker A: And then one more part of her passive is. It also heals her. [00:18:31] Speaker D: It's a very minor heal, but, yeah, it is a heal. [00:18:36] Speaker B: I mean, she heals for a little bit per second for at least 4 seconds, and you can just keep, like, stacking it up, and it stacks, by the way, up to four stacks, which is why you're seeing her rush rod of ages and combining it with the rod of ages sustain, and just. She heals a shitload. If you don't burst her 100 to zero, she'll just top herself back up. [00:19:06] Speaker C: And I think going that build does make sense on her specifically because of her ultimate, because I'm gonna skip straight to what her ult does because I think it kind of ties into how I think she should be built. So her ult, she leaps forward, immediately gains her passive, like the movement speed called realm Hopper, and then creates a big, essentially Camille ult around the spot she lands. So any enemy champion can't leave that zone. It does damage when she lands, and then also she can walk through the wall to teleport back out the other side. So you could do some really clever, like, trickery with some of your abilities that way. But it's still a Camille. You're still locked in there, so you want to have some survivability. Like, I played in one of my rankings the day I played against an aurora, I was ezreal. At one point, she locked me in, but she was building so squishy, I just blew her up like, it. So she was building, like, you know, pure AP had basically no health. I don't think she had a liandry's. And, yeah, I just was able to pop her right out of it. So, like, you want to be building some health to be able to actually survive when you're inside of it. [00:20:33] Speaker B: All right, so she has a Camille Ultz. Like, hey, you're trapped in here with me. Let's fight. She has a lot of healing in her passive. Her other abilities are white. I think a lot of the initial impression of her is underwhelming. I'm gonna quickly run through these. Her q shoots a line, does damage, marks targets, and then she recasts to pull back. Everyone she hits, she pulls back like a projectile back from that body, and this passes through. So, like, if you hit a champion with a bunch of minions behind them and then pull it back, all those minions will hit the champion again. Similar. Easiest way to think of it is similar to Xayah feathers. It's not exactly the same, but it's like, the same gameplay concepts. [00:21:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:28] Speaker B: She has a dash that turns her invisible, and if she attacks you, then it breaks the invisibility. Otherwise, it's one to one and a half seconds or so of invisibility. [00:21:40] Speaker D: It also gives her her passive. That realm hopper. [00:21:43] Speaker B: Yep. Which is. [00:21:45] Speaker C: It's her one point wonder. [00:21:47] Speaker B: Yes. This is her one point wonder realm hopper is the movement speed part. So she zooms when she's invisible. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Another champion that can jump over a wall. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Yup. She can jump over a wall. There's a lot of mind game potential. Cause this is actual invisibility, not just camouflage. Yep. So there's tons of potential for her to run in one direction, hop in that direction, and turn and juke you. There's gonna be definitely moments where you see Aurora's run past a bush, and as soon as their opponent passes the bush, jump in the direction they're running, and then turn around and run back and get to the bush before the invisibility fades. And where did she go? There's a lot of. There's a lot of potential for that kind of stuff. With her invisibility there, it. Honestly, it reminds me of Shaco a lot. [00:22:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:49] Speaker B: Her other ability is a mixture of, like, a Caitlin net, but also, like, the fissure part of it reminds me of, like, vel'koz. [00:23:02] Speaker C: Almost reminds me of Hue's QE. [00:23:09] Speaker B: The fire line trail. [00:23:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:14] Speaker D: I don't believe it's a projectile, so I think it functions like Lux Alt. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not a projectile, and it is not a damage over time. It is a single hit. But basically, she fires a zone in front of her that does damage and slows enemies, and she bounces a little bit in the opposite direction, which is why Caitlyn nett is my frame of reference for it. Cause hostility in one direction, movement the opposite way. [00:23:42] Speaker D: So here's the distinction between this and her wooden her w has quite a long range for the jump. It can take you almost over any wall except the very thickest of walls. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Yep. [00:23:53] Speaker D: Her e barely can get you through things. If you can find the very smallest walls, like right behind where wolves are, there's an ed bitty little wall there that is usually really thin that you can hop over. There's not too many more that you can grab, but it can take you over things. So things when you're like inside of a Jarvan alt, it can pop you over those. [00:24:13] Speaker B: I think that's the most of when you'll see wall hopping with this is to escape Jarvan ult Anivia walls, that kind of stuff. [00:24:23] Speaker D: It mostly is just a little bit of a space give. It's her. I'm going away from you. [00:24:27] Speaker B: But yes. So we talked briefly about. We mostly see her rushing rod of ages. What are we seeing after rod of ages? [00:24:40] Speaker D: Commonly, I have seen nothing similar. In every game, someone's built something different every single time. [00:24:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:24:46] Speaker C: I see Liandry's a lot and cosmic drive as well. [00:24:52] Speaker D: Cosmic drive is the one I've seen the most of. I think I've seen that 2nd, third, and fourth. And the games that I've seen her built. [00:24:58] Speaker A: I think Rift Maker was good on her. Gives her the health, gives her more survivability. [00:25:04] Speaker C: I could see that. [00:25:05] Speaker B: I could see that a lot. Especially since she has tools to buy time after initiating a fight to let the omnivamp trigger. [00:25:16] Speaker D: She's going to be very good with Zhonyas. With the amount of trickery she has in her get, that's going to be something that she's going to get. Third or fourth item, most likely. [00:25:26] Speaker B: Important to note her invisibility resets if she gets a takedown. [00:25:30] Speaker D: Yes. [00:25:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, the cooldown does. Yep. [00:25:35] Speaker D: There are things that you definitely should not build. Like, probably don't build malignants on her. [00:25:45] Speaker C: I could see it. [00:25:46] Speaker B: I think malignant has on her its. [00:25:48] Speaker D: Ability hasten, ultimate haste. But you're really not going to be getting the malignant passive that often. [00:25:54] Speaker A: I think her ultimate does quite a bit of damage too, to everybody in the area. [00:25:59] Speaker B: So her ultimate has good base damage. The ratio is pretty meh. It's only 65%. The reason I don't hate malignance for her is her whole schtick is trapping people in the ultimate. So her teammates can also murder them. Cause your teammates can move freely in and out of it. It only traps enemies and herself. So malignance is very much one of those, like, if you have other magic damage dealers on your team, you're trapping people in here. They're taking the malignant burn, which reduces their mister. You're helping your teammates kill them. I don't hate it. [00:26:37] Speaker D: It's not the worst of things, but you're probably not going to be doing something like, you're probably not going to be getting archangels, despite the fact that it's got a huge shield on it and some haste. You really seem to want to be having something that either gives you health or some other, like, defensive barrier around you. [00:26:53] Speaker B: I also think just you. You shouldn't build deathcap on her death cap. [00:26:56] Speaker D: I mean, that seems pointless. Yeah. She really likes the utility of items cosmic drive, giving her the extra movespeed in the ability haste, riftmaker, giving her the heal. Zhonya's passive, which, I mean, the Zhonya stop is one of the most broken things in the game. [00:27:11] Speaker B: Yep. [00:27:12] Speaker C: It's surprising to me that her e has her highest ap ratio. Like, that feels weird. [00:27:17] Speaker B: It's a good chunk of escape tool. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's interesting. So with all of that said, she builds kind of ap bruisery. She's about, like, sustained damage in fights. Where do we see her plate? Is she a mid laner? [00:27:36] Speaker A: I myself have been playing her in top lane just because of her inherent tankiness. Just one more ranged top lanere. Her healing in her kit, even though it's small, her movement speed, it just lets her survive a little bit. She has the really nice escape tool and good places for her to drop her r and use it to escape out. [00:27:59] Speaker C: I think she has better matchups. Top two. [00:28:02] Speaker D: I think if she's going to be a top laner, she's going to be the anti tank. That's going to be another one of those things you can bring into, like an Ornn. She's got a good movement to get away from him. That percent max health damage is going. [00:28:11] Speaker C: To be huge, I think even into, like, fighters, though. Cause fighters tend to build a lot of health, and she actually has a little bit of mobility to kind of kite them out. And the ability to kite out fighters is usually one of their weaknesses. [00:28:23] Speaker D: That's true. [00:28:24] Speaker A: I wholeheartedly, when I went into play against Aurora, I had no idea other than the basic concept of what she did. From videos, I put a Yorick against her, and that worked really well because Yorick's pretty good into ranged matchups anyway. Yeah, just throw an e out, hope it hits. [00:28:41] Speaker B: If not, just farm, and he's one of the champions that actually has healing built into his kit that doesn't require PvP combat. [00:28:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:52] Speaker D: So on an interesting note, I think probably her worst matchup in top might actually be something like Nasus. I think the slow is going to be brutal. You need to be able to try and stop him farming, which you really can't do with his innate healing. You don't do enough damage consistently, and eventually he will just outscale you and run you down. [00:29:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. I agree. I think Nasus looks like a horrible matchup for her. I've seen several people try to play her mid. My impression of her mid has been she's fine into melee champions mid. But playing her into a traditional mage is stupid. [00:29:33] Speaker C: I feel like she get destroyed by ad carries mid two. Like, just on aleutian, even ezreal, like. [00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:40] Speaker D: The ad carries seem like probably her weakest matchup, and they're very common right now. How do we think she knows them to assassins? Something like fizz, something like Leblanc. [00:29:51] Speaker A: Depends if she gets hit with an alt or not. [00:29:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's fizz. I think she'd be fine against he's melee. She can zone and bully him. She has disengaged tools if he tries to go in on her and she has a dash she can hold when he's six and just use it to dodge the shark pretty much every time. Leblanc and other assassins that she can't just range bully, I feel like she would do really poorly into the same way she'd do poorly into the ADC. I feel like she does not deal well with aggressive champions that she can't kite. [00:30:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:24] Speaker D: The only reason I think she might do better into assassins over ad carries is they are pretty much. I've run out of my burst and you're building pretty tanky with her. As long as you can survive those first item, Spike. Maybe your second item, Spike. If you can survive that, I think she will just end up being something they can't deal with. [00:30:43] Speaker B: She doesn't have the tools to keep them in the fight, though. And assassins in Lane are about trading with you and trading with you, and then, oh, you're now at half health. You can't exist in the lane or you will die instantly. [00:30:55] Speaker A: I feel like another problem with assassins is there's not really a whole lot of armor in her kit. And you're going against an assassin who's building lethality. They're going to be doing true damage to you. I don't know if you're going to have enough health to survive early without. Before you feed that assassin and they go run all over the map and then tilt your entire team. [00:31:15] Speaker C: She also doesn't have hard Cc in her kit. [00:31:18] Speaker D: No, hard Cc is a big problem. The. The zone, really. It's like, it's very good into the teamfight aspect when assassins are trying to zone onto people, but other than that, she's really not capable of dealing with them. It's more about maybe she can neutralize a little bit because she's not going to be as squishy as your standard mage or poke in the back line. [00:31:41] Speaker A: I will say her r to me felt very underwhelming. As far as the duration. [00:31:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Like, I feel like as soon as I get it down, it's gone. [00:31:48] Speaker D: I think it's three and a half seconds at max rank. [00:31:51] Speaker A: It was enough time for me to go back and forth, like, twice, and I couldn't figure out the way to drop it. I kept messing it up, and, like, I don't. I think it's just a cursor drop, and it drops on your cursor. But somehow I always ended up, like, already on the outside of the arena, and I would instantly get teleported to where I didn't want to be, and then I would get myself confused because I would never. I'd never played a champion like this, you know? So I always. It's definitely a practice with her ultimate, because if you use it wrong, you put yourself in a bad position. [00:32:27] Speaker D: It is important to note she gets displacement immunity when she ults. It's a half a second, so she's immune to the knockups, the suspensions, sleep stasis. [00:32:37] Speaker B: Yep. You can use it to buffer through things. [00:32:39] Speaker C: Yep. [00:32:43] Speaker B: And this is also why I think Zhonyas is actually really good on her, because it gives her the freedom to just be like, I'm trapping this person. Team, please, murder them and then go invulnerable so they can't turn around and murder her in return. [00:32:57] Speaker C: Yep. [00:32:59] Speaker D: I wonder what the duration between this and Camille Ulta is, because three and a quarter seconds at max rank, I. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Think it's pretty similar. The difference is, against Camille, 3 seconds feels like an eternity because Camille does so much auto attack damage. [00:33:16] Speaker A: Hate going against Camille. [00:33:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:19] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:33:20] Speaker C: Camille is 4 seconds at max rank, so pretty close. [00:33:24] Speaker B: Camille's a little longer. [00:33:28] Speaker C: Same as a second rank. [00:33:30] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:33:30] Speaker A: Wonder if Warwick Q follows Aurora around the ultimate. [00:33:35] Speaker C: Probably Warwick Q follows it. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Probably does. [00:33:38] Speaker D: It does. But I think she becomes untargetable during it. [00:33:41] Speaker B: So I. Yeah, but if he's already latched on and then she starts it, he should follow. That's usually how Warwick's Q works with everything else. I have not tested this disclaimer, listeners. This is. This is theory crafting. Cause I haven't seen a Warwick latch on, but I also only seen, like, one Warwick in a game with an aurora so far. [00:34:03] Speaker D: So I believe he will follow her because of untargetability. Cause, like, he'll follow. He'll follow you if you go through a teleport, which, oh, boy, that's a great one. But immediately afterwards, because she does the little knockback blast, it'll sort of bounce him around, probably. I would not alter. [00:34:24] Speaker C: Yeah. Cause he'll get knocked back for, like, hitting the edge of the arena. Cause it's not like, Camille, where you're just, like, trapped inside. If you try to walk out, you actually get knocked back in and slowed. [00:34:35] Speaker A: I wonder if, when people run to the outside, if it would drop another malignant proc. [00:34:41] Speaker B: It doesn't deal damage on the. That proc. So I assume it would not also trigger malignants again. [00:34:48] Speaker C: Nope. It slows them, but it doesn't damage them. [00:34:52] Speaker B: Yeah, the damage is only on the initial cast that would be broken if it was like, this is one of those. There's a lot of abilities that have a lot of lack of clarity on when they deal damage. Like, it seems like it should deal damage when it knocks you back. When you collide with Aurora's ult, it feels like Zyra and Lissandra ULTs are damage over time, for the time you stand in the circle, but they're a single hit instead. Like, there's a lot of abilities in. [00:35:18] Speaker A: This game that somehow trundle's pillar pulls aggro. Cause it does zero true damage. [00:35:22] Speaker D: Yes, I believe it used to do exactly one damage. [00:35:26] Speaker B: Yep. They changed it to do zero damage, but deal zero damage so that they didn't have to have it deal one damage anymore. But that exists specifically because they didn't want him to be able to just do a hostile action without pulling Turin Aggro. [00:35:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:43] Speaker B: It's the same reason Zilean's bomb deals, like, one, two, three damage and then blows up is to make sure that. [00:35:50] Speaker C: He pulls turret aggro correctly and minion aggro. [00:35:55] Speaker B: Yes. There's a. There's a lot of silly things in this game that are usually they're remnants of, like, the old League of Legends when the scripts were much simpler. [00:36:07] Speaker D: Sometimes they're just Teemo's in the bushes. [00:36:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know. There's a lot, so go ahead. [00:36:17] Speaker D: It is a significant amount larger than a Camille ultimate as well. [00:36:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:36:22] Speaker C: Yeah, it's big. [00:36:23] Speaker B: It's much bigger, which I actually think. [00:36:26] Speaker C: Kind of works to its detriment in some ways. [00:36:29] Speaker D: It is 7700 unit range, so it's larger than most auto attack ranges, whereas Camille's is 450. [00:36:38] Speaker B: That being said, it's still pretty tiny when you're trapped inside. [00:36:43] Speaker C: Yep. [00:36:46] Speaker B: But, yeah, it's a weird ability. It is important to note that if you have a spell shield of any kind or are immune to CC when you attempt to leave the zone, you just walk out. [00:37:01] Speaker C: Yep. [00:37:04] Speaker B: So, like, Sivir and nocturne can just hit their spell shield and walk out. Morgana can just black shield and walk out. [00:37:10] Speaker C: Mm hmm. [00:37:11] Speaker A: Good enough. [00:37:12] Speaker C: Yeah, it's not like. And it's not like Camille's because it's not a targeted ability. It is just, like, an area target thing. [00:37:19] Speaker B: Yep. [00:37:21] Speaker D: Yeah. She can grab a whole team and prevent them from leaving. [00:37:24] Speaker C: Yep. [00:37:25] Speaker D: So, honestly, she's. She's fairly decent for, like, the massive wombo combos. I think her and a Galio is a pretty scary of a combo. Much like Camille and Galio. [00:37:36] Speaker C: I think her on amumu is pretty scary too. [00:37:42] Speaker A: Teamwide. Mordecai's are old. [00:37:45] Speaker B: Kind of. Yep. It also should be noted, blinks with a destination outside will not collide with the border and will ignore the range check entirely. So you can use blink abilities to get out of the thing as well. I believe this includes Flash, so you can flash out of it. [00:38:06] Speaker C: Oh, that makes it significantly worse. [00:38:09] Speaker B: Yes, but still, I mean, Flash is a five minute cooldown. This ability is a two minute cooldown. [00:38:16] Speaker C: True. [00:38:17] Speaker B: Minus ability haste. So it's not as concrete of a trapping you as Camille Ult is either. [00:38:29] Speaker C: Yep. [00:38:30] Speaker D: The tradeoffs you get for being able to get the whole team. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Yes. She can literally trap an entire team if she does it right. And I have seen an Amumu Ult into Aurora Ult with Miss Fortune Ult on top of it. [00:38:44] Speaker D: I think the scariest position she can be in is she is going to be a terror in baron fights. [00:38:49] Speaker C: Yes. [00:38:50] Speaker D: If you lock someone in there, you have the ability to bounce around. Around the pit where they're not going to be able to grab you. She's going to be just cc'ing you because of the knockups on her or. [00:39:03] Speaker B: Just preventing people from leaving the pit so that your team can aoe them down. [00:39:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Like, we talked about brand being op earlier. How happy is brand gonna be if all five enemies are unable to escape the range of his passive? [00:39:20] Speaker D: Oof. [00:39:23] Speaker A: Sounds like I'm gonna be pretty happy. [00:39:25] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:39:26] Speaker D: That's a guaranteed five man ult there. [00:39:29] Speaker B: That is the nightmare scenario, if you're playing against a brand, is for him to have an aurora to trap you in place so you can't escape him. So that's a lot of what she does. And everything we've talked about builds overall. Should people pick Aurora up? [00:39:47] Speaker C: I think so, yeah. [00:39:48] Speaker D: Don't pick a champion up. If you think you're gonna like it, play it. [00:39:54] Speaker A: It's though, I think for a new champion, her position, you know, she doesn't have her go to meta build yet. Everybody's still learning her. You know, when Briar first came out, she was underplayed, underperformed, seemed balanced, and we saw where that ended up. She's in a situation right now where she seems balanced. She's fun to play, if you like, you know, the. The mobile champions, and she has a, she has a fun kit. The proccing of the passives, I think, are always fun. There's a, that adds a little bit of skill into playing her as far as it makes it a little more fun just working on that passive so you can get the movement speed, so you can get the healing. And I think matching that play, fleet footwork, good sustain. If that's what you decide to Runestone the room to take with her, be good. [00:40:49] Speaker C: Go ahead. [00:40:50] Speaker A: No, I was done. I think she'd be good. You know, she's not over complicated, where a new champion could or a new player or someone with that doesn't understand her would be able to just pick her up and play her. It's very simple kit, and with a lot of outplay potential in Ithoodae. [00:41:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I think people should definitely play her because I feel like with her aesthetic, she's gonna be one of those champions. Riot's not gonna let be bad, so they can make and sell a lot of skins for her. Cause she's a rabbit girl. So, like, I think they're gonna try and push that angle on her a lot. So they're not gonna let her be bad, so play her. She's gonna be good. [00:41:31] Speaker B: You think they're gonna buff the cute bunny girl to sell skins? [00:41:35] Speaker C: Yes. [00:41:36] Speaker B: Say it ain't so. [00:41:38] Speaker A: So here's a fun little tidbit I learned. You know, how all the rage of briar feet when she was released, the artist designing her had to specifically Google rabbit feet and how to draw them in a cute way. And he talked about how he is not happy with his Google search history while making her. [00:42:00] Speaker B: That. Or he's very happy about it. I'm just saying. [00:42:05] Speaker C: But it's one extreme or the other. You're either really happy or really unhappy. [00:42:10] Speaker B: Yep. I will say to Riot's credit of her base skin and her release skin, neither one is particularly hot or sexual in any way, shape or form. [00:42:21] Speaker D: And none of them are egregious. They're both pretty. Okay. [00:42:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I think they actually did a good job. [00:42:27] Speaker B: So I don't know how popular she's actually gonna be because she isn't overly sexualized. I guess we'll find out. [00:42:37] Speaker D: Let's honestly, I know she's very popular to play through the new game mode that's been going on. Swarm. [00:42:43] Speaker C: I was actually gonna say I think the skin might sell more because of Swarm. Because like you can actually see the in game model first and use it there. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Fair enough. So me and free shooter talked about Swarm a little bit last week. Do you guys have any thoughts about Swarm? [00:42:59] Speaker A: Love it. [00:43:00] Speaker D: I have played a lot of swarm. I am deep into extreme, 70 points into anima power. I love Swarm. If you like vampire Survivor at all. This is every bit is fun to play, only it's a little bit better for actually, it's a lot, a lot better to play with other people. You don't steal powers, you don't lock yourself out of things easily. It's just really well done. They've taken out some of the early bugs where you were getting a lot of artifacting. It's just been really fun. And if you play a lot of swarm and get all the achievements, you get aurora for free. [00:43:40] Speaker B: There you go. So listeners, if you want to get the new champion without having to spend blue essence, play swarm. Alright, let's actually do some listener questions. We have a few questions lined up again, listeners. Theforewordspodcastmail.com, we did not get any questions from you this past week. For shame. I want to see questions in that inbox. Write them in so we can answer them on the show. So we're actually going to finish wrapping up a question from, I think two weeks ago that Prince of winners sent in. Prince of winners sent in a bunch of questions and the last one that we didn't get to before Washington. I noticed players don't play enough mind games. Why do you think this is? This is especially effective if you are playing mid. You can fake a roam to pressure bot lane without even going there. Why do people not play enough mind games? Because people get in their own heads. [00:44:33] Speaker C: Yep. [00:44:36] Speaker B: It's especially for things like faking a roam. People get in their own heads of I have to beat my lane opponent, and they get fixated on that. Beating your lane opponent is only one way to win League of Legends. [00:44:50] Speaker D: So I think most of the mind games that seem to happen in league are things that happen in lane skillshot baiting. And this is really common with hook champions like, especially Blitzcrank. You're going to play a mind game on. When am I going to hook? I'm going to run right at you. Am I just going to do it and then you're just going to bonk him in the face? [00:45:09] Speaker B: Yep. [00:45:12] Speaker C: There's also mind gaming playing against them of like, I'm gonna just walk one way in a straight direction and the frame, I see them start their animation, I'm gonna go the other way. Or I'm just constantly in lane. Gonna be, like, going back and forth, jittering. I think we talked about this a couple weeks ago of a habit I've picked up when I'm clearing control wards is I'll hit the ward three times and then walk away and then walk back and hit it the fourth time just to, like, if someone was timing an ability when I was going for that fourth hit. [00:45:39] Speaker B: Yep. And especially against Blitzcrank, you'll see a lot of times the hook will go out when the ward has one HP left. [00:45:46] Speaker C: Yep. [00:45:48] Speaker A: A lot of mind games that I deal with in top lane is completely different. [00:45:52] Speaker B: That top lanes its own beast mind. [00:45:54] Speaker A: Games in top lane, you do like the fake, you know, go into shadows in hopes that your opponent shoves the wave so you can try to freeze it and then you can play with them like that. When I did play mid lane, and Jax is probably going to hate me for this. I was an Akali main. Jax, I thought you didn't like Akali. [00:46:18] Speaker B: I do not like Akali at all. I don't like Irelia at all. [00:46:22] Speaker A: I was, but I was dirty Akali Main. And I always had fun because, you know, everybody knows Akali's early wave clear is garbage. But if you fake enough roams and come back, they're not gonna think that you're roaming anymore. So what are not roaming and just hiding? So then you would actually turn in Rome. That's the only mind games that I would do as someone with terrible wave clear when I played mid lane. [00:46:48] Speaker B: So the. The mind game I like you kind of alluded to it a bit. It's really funny in top lane when you manage to crash a wave and that's normally when you would reset because the wave will bounce back towards you. But they're playing a high wave clear champion. Like maybe they're playing rumble or something. So you know you don't actually have enough time to go back, but you're still healthy. So if you crash the wave and then sit in a bush that you know isn't warded, they go and kill a few too many minions and then you're like, oh thanks. Now I have my freeze all set up. You can't do anything anymore. Go fuck yourself. You're dead until the jungler comes by. [00:47:30] Speaker C: I do this a lot in bot game two of like, well like, like you walk, you push a wave into the tower, you walk back into like the near bush or even like you drop a ward in that bush and then go into the alcove and just wait and see if they greed for the extra wave and you can even start channeling your recall. And if they don't greed for that extra wave, just let it finish. [00:47:52] Speaker B: Yep. [00:47:52] Speaker C: This is a good thing to do on junglers as well. Of like if you need to back and you see a wave is like your, one of your laners is crashing a wave, go sit in one of their lane bushes and just like start channeling your recall. But if an opportunity shows up in 8 seconds, then don't finish it. [00:48:09] Speaker B: I've had so many times where I clear the bot lane camp closest to my bot lane and just walk over to tri bush and start recalling because the wave is crashing in. And I see that if I were looking to dive my bot lane, it would be a time to do it. So I'm sitting in the path their jungler would take to set up the dive. I have definitely had junglers just face check directly into me and die because they had no idea I was there. And then they're like why the fuck are you even here? There's rift herald up on the other side of the map. And I'm like, I'm here because I wanted to kill you. [00:48:44] Speaker C: Yep. [00:48:47] Speaker A: I do know the biggest mind game if you're on the defensive of a lane is denying someone their cannon. Because there are people that will int for that cannon. [00:48:55] Speaker B: Yes. [00:48:56] Speaker A: And you can get 300. And what's, what's an early cannon worth? 67 gold? [00:49:01] Speaker B: I think something like that. [00:49:03] Speaker A: You can get a 367 net positive gold by thinking they, they're gonna get that cannon. [00:49:11] Speaker B: Yep, yep. It's my favorite is when you're playing someone with a really scary all in, like maybe Tristana, since I play mid lane and you get the cannon just a little bit too far back for them to safely get and you know they're going to anyway. If you just make it look juicy, you make it look like, oh, don't worry, you're not in danger. I am not in a position to aggress on you. Oops, I was lying. [00:49:37] Speaker C: I'm at ad carry. This conversation is triggering me. [00:49:42] Speaker B: I had a Lissandra game against an anivia where I went 1508 recently, where I would frequently, just as soon as she threw down spells to clear the wave because she felt like she had to, I was like, cool, that's my window to aggress on you. And then after doing that like three times, I was like, okay, her jungler's probably there. I throw the claw forward and just walk away. Sure enough, a shyvana ults out from the bush and I'm like, cool. I got Shyvana ult for nothing because I am kicking this person's ass and figured that they would call for help. [00:50:20] Speaker D: That seems to be like one of the key things with mind games is the jungler is really going to be the person who's sitting there doing the most of them. They're trying to figure out, can I go over here and bait you into a bad situation? Do I have time to go in here and grab grubs? Can I grab this dragon early before grubs happens? When is a good time to get in for a five minute dragon, etc etcetera. That is, that is the king of mind games. As long as you're not trying to do something like baiting. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Alright, so that's uh, that's our thoughts on mind games. Thank you for the questions. Prince of winners our next question tonight comes from Luis who writes hi wards, its me, the old guy. Again. As I said before I just started playing and im having trouble understanding the different roles in the game. Could you guys spend five minutes explaining to us the mechanics of minion control while in a lane? Say for example top lane? Im sure a lot of listeners could use the info, maybe explain what is my goal? What do I do between waves of minions? Should I help the jungler? How often do I back to buy items, etcetera? So uh, we briefly just mentioned the concept of freezing. This is definitely not top lane exclusive, but it is most common in top lane cause it's really easy in top lane for there to be a power disparity where you can do this. [00:51:40] Speaker C: Mm hmm. [00:51:43] Speaker B: But freezing is essentially saying, I have more minions dying on my side than you have on your side, which means your wave is pushing towards me, and I'm not letting you reach my minions to kill them. And I'm going to prevent your minions from reaching my turret so that this stays in a perpetual state of my minions are dying to your minions, you are not killing them, and they're not making it to the tower and dying to my tower. Does that sound like a good summary of what freezing is? In a nutshell? [00:52:17] Speaker C: Yep. [00:52:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:52:18] Speaker C: Freezing and the reasons for it are mainly if they want to farm, they have to come past the halfway point of the river and open themselves up to potential ganks or just be in your range of threat if you're that much stronger and have a longer run back to safety if things the trade doesn't go their way. [00:52:42] Speaker B: That's why I think this is so prevalent in top lanes, specifically because it's. It's a one on one. You don't have help to break these freezes. You don't have a mage support to be like, cool, I'll take a couple of the cs and we'll break the freeze, and then you'll be able to farm again. You're just stuck. [00:53:03] Speaker D: So this. This question as a whole feels sort of like it's two questions, because there's. There's the question about minion controls and the mechanics that they're in, and then there's the question about different roles in the game, and those are really sort of a separate thing. Minion control is pretty much something that can be done throughout all three lanes. Which person is doing the minion control changes a little bit, but the different roles, really, that's going to be a little bit more than a five minute discussion. [00:53:34] Speaker B: True. [00:53:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:53:37] Speaker B: So let's. That's freezes. What, uh, what else? What do you do between waves of minions? Like, if you're playing someone who can kill the wave quickly in the next wave isn't here yet, what should you be doing? [00:53:51] Speaker D: There's really, like, three things you can do that I can see. You can go back because you've. You've got money to buy a component or an item, and you've pushed the wave into the tower. You can leave the lane either to put vision down, try and get a gank off, try and get a roam off, see where the jungler is, or you can stay in lane and try and see if you can do what we were talking about earlier and beat. [00:54:20] Speaker C: Or even just get some tower damage down. Like if you know the junglers on the other side of the map, you're not worried of getting ganked, you can, you know, try and even deny them getting their minions under the tower, or I just get some plates in the airway game, things like that. [00:54:36] Speaker A: So in my experience with top lane, you want to be careful on shoving a wave, wiping a wave, and immediately backing, because then you set yourself up to lose two waves of minions to a freeze. While you're on your way back, will you want to escort your wave to that tower and make sure that those melee minions are at least that you do not leave a surplus of at least four minions outside of that tower. Otherwise, they will have the criteria for a fleet freeze. This is top lane. I don't know if it's mid lane. Like, I don't know how the four way minions work. I just know that's top lane. [00:55:11] Speaker B: So the number of minions is the same. Because mid lane is shorter, it's much easier to break freezes. But like frail attest bot lane, it's the exact same thing. The only reason freezes are less prevalent in bot lane than top lane is that there's two people. So it's harder to freeze against two people than one. [00:55:30] Speaker C: And also the farmer is almost always ranged, so. [00:55:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:55:34] Speaker A: So once you've escorted that minion wave to the enemy tower, you are safe to make a couple decisions. Find, look at your map, look where your minion wave is. Because your minion wave is always going to mirror the enemy's minion wave. [00:55:49] Speaker C: Yep. [00:55:49] Speaker A: So if you have a minion wave just spawning, their minion wave is just spawning. If you back, that minion wave is going to meet in the middle and you'll have time almost for a full back. But if their minion wave is almost to their tower, that means or your minion wave almost to your tower. Their minion waves almost to their tower. If you back at that point, they're going to wipe that wave, you're going to lose a wave of minions. [00:56:11] Speaker B: Yep. [00:56:11] Speaker A: So you have to be very careful looking at your mini map where your minions are incomplete. That will be exact, directly where their minions are. [00:56:21] Speaker B: I actually have used this, this concept of your minions and their minions mirror each other in the jungle to dodge vision. So the entrance to krugs on both sides of the map just has an open gap. And as the minions walk by, they can see into that. And if you are walking by as the jungler in the enemy jungle, right then and there, you'll get spotted by minions. I have definitely had it where I'm like counter jungling and I'm realizing, oh shit, there's minions there. If I step forward, any cause player vision is farther than the minions vision is. So I see their minions and I stop and I'm like, if I step any farther, I'll get seen. I have literally. And if you've watched my streams, you'll see me do this. Every once in a while I move my camera to the other side of the map and look at the the other side's krugs, where my minions are. When my minions can't see that corner anymore, I know it's safe for me to walk by because their minions can't see that corner anymore. It's, it's one of those, like, it's so stupid, but it's clever at the same time. [00:57:38] Speaker A: Something else, another thing I can add. Sorry, go ahead. Well, another thing I can add in, and I'm sure Jax, as Jungle has experienced this a lot, lot, the first three minutes of the game are very important for a jungler. If you can disrupt the enemy jungler, it's going to put your jungler and you super far ahead because it's going to tilt them. What I like to do is say if I'm playing like Renekton or something, who has pretty good early wave clear is I like to time and look where my jungle's at. And assuming that they're mirroring each other, I like to shove that top wave, that second top wave, which normally is about the timing. And I like to go with my jungle or go put a ward, deep ward in the enemy jungle. That way it keeps me safe on my island up there. Or maybe if my jungle wants to invade, we go invade because we have priority. And if the top laner decides they want to go answer, they lose. Very important early game xp and very important early game gold. [00:58:35] Speaker B: All right, pillow pet, you have unlocked a trauma memory and I want to see if this hurts you as much as it hurts me. Me. When you're playing blue side and your jungler starts in the enemy red quadrant and clears all three camps in the enemy red quadrant and then goes to continue clearing and their top laner pushes up at the like two and a half minute mark and clears the wave and moves towards the enemy tower and it's like, buddy, I cleared their red quadrant. They have no camps left. They're going to gank you because they can't do anything else. Please don't be there. [00:59:09] Speaker C: Yup. [00:59:09] Speaker B: And inevitably it means me as the jungler. I now have to give up my advantageous clear position of knowing which camps are still up. When they don't, they likely are gonna check all three of their camps. Cause they don't have any other camps to take. I have to give that up because I now, as soon as I see that the idiot's pushing, have to beeline top to counter gank. And now I'm not in the lead anymore. [00:59:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, you have to just know when to hold them and know when to fold them. You know what that's saying? Like, it's very important to know that if you're mindlessly shoving away, if you're going to get ganked because you're free picking it no matter what vision you have, if you're sitting up by the tower, that triple or that war river bush is not going to save you. You don't have enough time. So you just stand back halfway, halfway point, you know, go sit in that bush, wait for vision. Most likely, as a top laner, you're going to be able to combat that jungler if he decides to show up and fight you, and you're going to chunk him down and he's going to go lick his wounds and be weak in the jungle. And hopefully your jungle notices that and tries to take that advantage. But don't ever sit up buy their tower early in the game because you're not going to be able to win the two v one unless you're Darius and you start a fight early. [01:00:34] Speaker C: Yep. The other thing I was going to mention, too, more on, like, using the minions appropriately, is you always want to try. At least this is true in Bot lane. You want to try and back when the incoming wave has a cannon minion in it, just because if they stay to clear the wave or even if they don't, because there's the extra minion and it's tankier, it will take longer for that wave to die and give you extra time to get back in. And you, if it's like just leaving the base or like even halfway down the lane, you likely won't even miss the cannon minion. [01:01:12] Speaker B: Yep. And even if you do, the key here is cannon also takes reduced damage from turrets. It takes, like, I think, seven turret shots to kill a cannon minion. [01:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly seven. [01:01:22] Speaker B: Whereas it takes two for casters and three for melee. That cannon minion is tanking a melee and two casters worth of shots on its own. It buys a ton of time, so even if you miss the cannon, that cannon minion being there might mean you get two melee and three casters that you otherwise would have gotten. One caster. [01:01:41] Speaker C: Yep. [01:01:45] Speaker B: Alright, so that's. That's some talk about wave management. Minion management. Luis, if you want more more specifics for understanding roles, please write in a more specific question. It's too generalized. That would be an entire episode for us to cover. Some of trying to explain all the different roles in the game. We've done it before, and we'll probably do it again, but in the meantime, please write in something more specific so we can answer your specific questions. Yeah, so we have one more question we're gonna get to tonight, and that's because Mike, of many names, wrote this question into us before he was invited to join the show from his audition. So, Mike, I'm gonna make you read your own question, okay? [01:02:33] Speaker D: So for those of us who do prefer duoing to the toxic waste that is solo queue, what positions do the rest of you recommend for both people, instead of just maybe being the bot lane pair mid jungle ad carry, is jungle just the best duo potential because you have the most potential map presence? [01:02:56] Speaker C: Yes. [01:02:57] Speaker B: All right. I do agree. Jungle is generally just the correct duo partner for every role. However, I think there's a lot of value in top mid duos because you have complete control of Rift Herald, and if both of your solos win the lane, you probably win the game. [01:03:17] Speaker C: Yeah, straight up. [01:03:18] Speaker B: Solo lanes have so much individual power. [01:03:22] Speaker C: Be prepared for long queue times. If you do that, though, it's not. [01:03:27] Speaker B: Too bad right now, but a lot of times, one of you will get your secondary roll. [01:03:34] Speaker A: A post ten minute tp play from the top laner can change the whole outcome of the game. [01:03:38] Speaker B: Yep. [01:03:40] Speaker A: And that's why it's very important to make sure you're picking the right summoner spells for your team matchup. [01:03:46] Speaker D: Yup, that's true. If you're doing solo queue, you're less likely to need the teleport. [01:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah, duo queue. You want to be able to teleport to get to your teammates to make the difference, because you're able to communicate with at least one of them. [01:04:00] Speaker C: Mm hmm. [01:04:00] Speaker A: That's why Shin's so strong. [01:04:03] Speaker B: I was actually gonna give maybe an unusual choice of duo combo mid and support. [01:04:10] Speaker C: I was just thinking about that one. That's a good one. [01:04:12] Speaker B: There's two reasons. One, it feels like a lot of games nowadays are decided by which bot lane feats. You can't prevent both people in bot lane from beating unless you're doing botanical. But the support has a lot more control over the state of the lane than the ADC does. The support is the one warding. The support is the one trying to peel the jungler off as they come in for the gank. Ad Carry's job is just to last hit minions and you hope they pay attention to the map. [01:04:50] Speaker D: The supporter is also the one who is not in lane all the time. A lot of times early on you'll see supports continuously being in their lane and early just constantly being in the duo lane, which is really good in the first five minutes or so. But then once you start into the real heavy warding phase, supports get free range. Suddenly having a support in top lane is murder on a top lane's mentality. [01:05:13] Speaker B: Yes, it is. And that's why I said mid support specifically and not like jungle support, because a mid laners tilt when they get ganked by a support, like, just straight up. They're like, why the fuck is this guy in my lane? And mid laners are really good at projecting leads onto the rest of the map. So if your support finds a window to be like, oh, this ad carry is dead. Wait, let me go help the other guy who can help me win the game. There's a lot of value in that. So when you get the dud ADC's, because you're gonna get some dud ADC's if you're not playing ad carry yourself. Oh, my God. That role is so filled with people who think they're God's gift to League of Legends. [01:06:00] Speaker A: Draven players. [01:06:02] Speaker B: Free shooter. This is audio medium. The listeners cannot see you waving at the camera. [01:06:09] Speaker D: Let's lease in players. They're cuts gift. [01:06:14] Speaker B: Also true. And yasuo players, I know, but if you have a good support duo and you're mid and you get the good ADC, great. You've just guaranteed that you're good. Rando has a good support. You'll just win the game. You don't have to do anything as the mid laner. [01:06:33] Speaker C: I think the most underrated is the support top because mid laners sometimes expect the support to roam up in gank. Top laners never expect the support to gank. [01:06:47] Speaker B: Yup. [01:06:48] Speaker C: And also, if they're on a split pusher, you can actually coordinate, like warding for your split pusher. In the later stages of the game. [01:06:54] Speaker B: This is usually like a after 14 minutes or like at least after ten minutes kind of roam. Because usually as a support, you don't want to approach the top lane fighters when they're like hi, I'm level five, you're level three and they just murder you because you're a support. [01:07:12] Speaker A: I mean, top laner is still stronger than a strong bot laner. Early game. [01:07:18] Speaker C: Yep, yep. But a good time to do it would be like sometimes even on like first reset bot lane. If your jungler is like going up in the area for like grubs, um, just start walking towards top lane and just like if you can make something happen, top great. If not, just stand by your jungler in case the other jungler shows up and then you can even just like kind of do a like just a pass and then walk back. Bot lane. [01:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean as long as your bot. [01:07:50] Speaker C: Lane'S not going to get screwed for it. [01:07:51] Speaker A: But a word of advice for supports that are roaming top. If the enemy's a Darius and you see him get a five stack on the top laner, don't go in and try to help. It's done, it's over. Get out of there. [01:08:03] Speaker B: If you have a way to peel him off the top laner, maybe do that. But don't try to actually brawl. [01:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's if you're level three in the Darius or level four, the Darius is level six. It's somewhere in that early game. Just don't even bother. [01:08:17] Speaker C: Or if they have an Illaoi, just don't try it. [01:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah, don't try to. Your opportunity is over with because Darius gets a lot of ad early on. Not a lot of champions can beat him. One v, one at level one just because of how much bonus ad he gets just from his passive. [01:08:37] Speaker B: It's kind of insane. I want to say it's like 40 ad at level one. [01:08:43] Speaker A: It's a ridiculous amount. [01:08:44] Speaker B: It's 30 ad at level one plus the bleed stacks. [01:08:49] Speaker A: And it might seem small but it's like it's instantly transfers to once he's got that passive and if you walk in to a Darius it's like already fighting and you're trying to help and he's got a five stack. He's just going to cue you. You're going to give him 15% healing and you're both just going to give him 600 gold. [01:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Alright, any other thoughts about duo setups? [01:09:17] Speaker D: I mean, the best duo partner obviously is Lucian in the top line. [01:09:21] Speaker B: It's true guys, he's a new ward but he knows the shtick. Alright, this has been episode 440 of the Four Wards podcast. Thank you again for joining us Mike of many names and pillow pet. We look forward to having you guys for many future episodes. Listeners, please. Seriously, I've said it a couple times. Questions the four wardspodcastmail.com write in. We have one question in the queue. I want more. Other than that, I've been Jack Solman for free, shooter for Mike and many names and for pillow Pet. I hope you have a great night. [01:10:03] Speaker C: Bye. [01:10:04] Speaker D: Ta ta for now. [01:10:06] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards podcast. If you liked what you heard and you want to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com the four awards podcast to give us some support. We appreciate you and of course, listeners, please don't forget to write your questions into theforwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer them on the show.