The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 447: Mechwarrior Stole His Soul

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the four Wards podcast. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, what's up? It's Eric Brah, voice of Draven, Jerks, and Velcaz. [00:00:13] Speaker A: And you're listening to the Forwards podcast. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Here to help you move forward and lead. Hello and welcome to episode 447 of the four Wards podcast. I'm your host, as usual, and I've got three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends Crush. You is back this week. [00:00:47] Speaker C: Semi present as always. [00:00:50] Speaker B: I don't think you get to claim semi present right now. Mechwarrior has stolen your soul, eh? We've also got free shooter. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Hi. And that's Jax, because he didn't introduce himself. [00:01:02] Speaker B: I said I was your host as usual. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Jackson, you didn't say Jack Soman. You just said, I'm your host as usual. And with me, I've got. [00:01:12] Speaker B: Okay, whatever. We've also got my team anymore. [00:01:15] Speaker D: I'm stealing crushes category if ever present. [00:01:18] Speaker B: Now, it's true. You are the most consistent in the last few weeks. [00:01:26] Speaker C: There. [00:01:27] Speaker B: I don't know if you qualify as ever present yet, but you're certainly present. [00:01:31] Speaker D: I'm the somewhat present. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Alright, guys, we are the Forwards podcast, and I'm gonna give the shout out first, but then we've got an announcement. So shoutout to Codex, Ninja, Pillow, pet, and Robogon for supporting us at the Shoutout tier. Guys, thank you so much. We really could not do this without you. Now, if you want to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com. the Forwardspodcast. One dollars a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month will get you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show, or just us telling stories, which is pretty much what happened this week. And $10 a month will get you the exclusive feed and those shout outs. So we really do appreciate you guys and all Patreon tiers. Get a special role and access to the Patreon channels in the new four Wards podcast community. Discord. That's right. There is a link in the episode description because it is a pile of gibberish, and I'm not gonna say it on the air cause that is useless. But we have a discord now. I spent a lot of time setting it up and setting up bots so we can properly moderate and setting up channels. So come join the discord, come hang out, come play games. It's gonna be a great time. Link is in the episode description. [00:02:52] Speaker C: I'd love to see two Baxd eight v s t a exactly. [00:02:59] Speaker B: So yeah, please, seriously, come join the discord. We'd love to have you. Last but not least, listeners. You're not getting chastised this week. You sent in questions, but we always need more questions right into the forwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show. All right? And with that, this is a patch episode. Patch 1418 is here. It is the world's patch. That's right, everyone, it is already that time of year. I know the world championships literally start in a week, so they had to do the world's patch. Now they can't do it later. So that means this chain patch has a lot of small number changes. There's not a lot of major mechanical changes because all of those are coming. Next patch, get ready. Buckle in. Next patch is going to be wild. But that doesn't mean there isn't stuff for us to talk about this patch. First and foremost, at the top, we want to highlight that there was a change to the way penalties work if you decline ready checks repeatedly. Now obviously as an individual, there's no legitimate reason you would ever just repeatedly decline ready checks because that's insane behavior. But the reason this change is happening is because high Elo streamers were getting stream sniped where people would, in their Elo would queue up, watch their stream. If the ready check on the streamer's client and on your client popped at the same time, you knew you were probably in the streamer's game. They are amping up the decline penalties to deter this behavior. But where this affects the rest of us plebs is if your friend queues up while you're AFK, you are declining that ready check. And if he does it over and over, he's gonna get you put on a dodge timer and get you in trouble with riot. So tell your friends not to be morons and to not queue up repeatedly. If your friend is AFK and you queued up and it says, oh, they declined the ready check, they're not ready. Don't queue up again until your friends tell you they're actually ready. And if your friends are the type to queue up again anyway because they think it's funny to put you on a dodge timer, ditch them and find. [00:05:17] Speaker D: New friends, it's not just a dodge timer that it's gonna be put on you. They're, they're putting this up to like, if you can repeatedly do this, they're banning people. Yeah, they're adding on bans. [00:05:27] Speaker B: And part of this they've the situation I described of your friend being a jackass should never escalate to a ban because you're gonna get put on a Dodge timer first, and then he can't troll you further. The ban is specifically if people continue to try to abuse stream sniping to harass streamers. But yes. Okay, now that we got that out of the way, someone highlighted one of the changes in the patch. I've talked too much already. [00:05:58] Speaker C: I want to talk about Jarvan because his is. Look, all. As Jax mentioned, I. Most of these changes are really tiny, tiny numbers adjustments, and Jarvans is no exception. His passive martial cadence, the current health damage, changed from 7% to 8%. [00:06:15] Speaker B: The reason I mentioned this is this changed. [00:06:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. I think this is getting changed. The last time I was on the podcast. So, like, it's. It's. It was. It was up at eight before it went down to seven. Now it's back up to eight. This will have a small effect. Like, this makes. Look, this makes Jarvan's clear. Better, but not a lot better. So it shaves a second, maybe two, off of it. Maybe. [00:06:41] Speaker B: All right, I want to drive home. Just how silly this is. So we're on patch 1418. That's September 2024. Changed from seven to 8%. Patch 14, eight. Literally 20 weeks ago, it changed from 6% to 7%. Go back to 1318. Exactly one year ago, it changed from 8% to 6%. Literally one year, it changed from 8% to 6% to 7% to 8%. [00:07:14] Speaker C: So, wait, a year ago, it went from eight to six, right? [00:07:17] Speaker B: Yes. [00:07:18] Speaker C: So they made this a change to keep them out of worlds, and now they're undoing that change? [00:07:23] Speaker B: Yes. [00:07:23] Speaker C: See if they can get it back into world. [00:07:26] Speaker B: It's so stupid. I simultaneously love and hate it. [00:07:35] Speaker D: I mean, he still ends up at worlds no matter what. Anyways, he keeps going there for no fucking reason. [00:07:40] Speaker C: I want to be clear. Like, we make fun of the league balance team a lot. It is a hard job. Let's be clear. This sort of weird looking thing happens because the context changes, and you have to undo stuff that you had just done. That happens all the time. It's not that weird. It's funny. [00:08:03] Speaker B: It's the same reason Ezreal's Q ratio fluctuates constantly. There are many moving parts around. Champions that you can't just actually balance champions in a vacuum. [00:08:15] Speaker C: Yep. [00:08:16] Speaker A: And I have to check his Q back up. If the PvE changes go through next match. God, it's gonna be useless. [00:08:24] Speaker D: There's so many changes. [00:08:25] Speaker C: Oh God. Yeah, I saw those. Oh my God. Those are gonna be awful. Anyway, that's gonna be a fun. [00:08:31] Speaker B: You're gonna be off the hook for questions that week. Even though we probably won't get to them. You still better send some in. [00:08:40] Speaker A: I can go next. Cuz mine kind of touches on worlds because it's worlds time. That means they're gonna buff Azir and Corki. So we have a zero corki meta. Wait. Oh my God. They learned they're nerfing Aziren. Corki. Huzzah. I'm gonna talk specifically about the quirky ones because they're a little bit bigger. The damage on his fos bomb, the Q is going down Max rank. It's only by 20, but this is the biggest part of his burst combo currently. And it's first max. So it is still a significant change. And then his are the missile barrage. It's losing 10% bonus id scaling at all ranks. And then it ranks two and three. It's losing 20 and 40 flat damage. So a little bit less pokey, a little bit less. [00:09:29] Speaker B: That's also doubled on the big ones, I think. [00:09:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, that is true. [00:09:36] Speaker B: That's a hefty nerf on the big ones. [00:09:40] Speaker A: I mean, it's native with how much why he was getting in pro. But yeah, if you play Corky right now, later in the game, you're not going to hit as hard. [00:09:53] Speaker B: Fair enough. All right, Mike, it's your turn. You want to segue off Corki and talk about Arun? [00:10:00] Speaker D: Yeah, we can. We can talk about some fleet footwork here again because this is. We're never getting off of fleet footwork changes because this has been going on for what, three months? They've been working with fleet footwork over and over again. [00:10:14] Speaker A: It's been since mid season, so. [00:10:16] Speaker B: Yep. [00:10:17] Speaker D: So there are slight number tweaks that they're changing across the board on a lot of things. They're changing the healing base from five to 100 to ten to 130, adding 60% effectiveness for ranged. So basically what this is, you're getting a ever so slightly early buff for Fleetwood. We're healing for range, and then an ever so slight nerf later in the game. Essentially they've decided we're buffing fleet footwork for melee. [00:10:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:48] Speaker D: Cause the changes mathematically come out to around the same for ranged. And a little bit of a buff for melee. [00:11:00] Speaker B: Which is fine. Cause melee actually could use the buffs for fleet footwork. It's pretty shit for them. [00:11:07] Speaker C: Kassadin, happy? [00:11:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm trying to think, other than Kassadin, who else uses fleet a calling? Okay, never mind. I'm not happy about that. [00:11:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I knew I could ruin Jax's knight with one word. [00:11:22] Speaker C: Does Irelia use it? [00:11:24] Speaker A: No, I think she's conqueror. [00:11:27] Speaker C: Ah, yeah. Yeah, most of. Most that you would expect to maybe use fleet footwork, end up using conqueror instead. [00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:35] Speaker D: Yeah. There aren't a lot of melee champions who pattern hit, then run away. [00:11:40] Speaker A: I think it's one of those of, like, if Sylas is in an awful matchup, he can technically use it. But you shouldn't be blinding Silas. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Yep. I think it's an okay rune on the windshielders, but usually PTA or conqueror is better. [00:11:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, you'd pick that if you're unlike. [00:11:57] Speaker D: Awful matchup, you'd rather use PTA or conquer. [00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Yep. All right. Which means I'm gonna highlight something. How about another champion who doesn't use fleet footwork? I'm gonna talk about my namesake, even though I had the name first, thank you very much, because my name's from fucking 2002. But Jax got some changes. Specifically, they made some changes to his ult. First of all, just the proc damage on hit. Every third auto win, up by ten at all ranks, which is cool. And then more meaningful is they buffed the amount of armor and magic resist that. Jax gets both baseline if he hits anyone, and the bonus per target if he hits multiple extra targets. Both of those, they increase the base amount of armor. And mister, he gets this should significantly increase his durability during that eight second window of he is super strong when his ult is active and help skew him more heavily towards the fighter itemization that he's supposed to be building of. Like ad in health. [00:13:10] Speaker D: This is a healthy change. [00:13:13] Speaker B: This is the way to buff him. That won't make him out of control. [00:13:18] Speaker C: That's merry on it. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Because if you buff his cooldowns on any of his basic abilities, or if you buff the duration of his stunt or you buff the damage of his w, he gets out of control. [00:13:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:31] Speaker D: Any base, AP, health ad ratios, those are going to escalate massively. So this is. This is something that gives him a short window of power that you can tune in a way that makes him easy enough to play against. [00:13:47] Speaker B: Exactly. There's counterplay when it's a window of strength as opposed to permanent strengthen. [00:13:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll agree with that. I don't. [00:13:56] Speaker B: It's the same reason, like, Aatrox always gets buffed through changes to his ultimate, basically because it's the exact same concept, just mechanic to do it. [00:14:05] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm a little worried because I don't generally like the concept of champion who is nigh unkillable for 8 seconds and then you can kill him after that for two minutes and then. Yeah, goes back to, yeah, I don't generally like that concept, but I agree. It's fine. Like, it's a, it's a very popular concept. It exists across, across a lot of champions like Illaoi Mundo. The reason why Nasus Renekton. [00:14:30] Speaker D: Yeah, the reason why this changes, the most healthy out of all of them is it requires him to be near more people for it to become more effective. So unless you were in a full teamfight effectiveness, it's not at its full power if you're doing it in a one v, one that's significantly weaker. Jacks. [00:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a mild buff instead of a huge buff. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:49] Speaker C: I just, honestly, the main thing that I dislike about this sort of change is it has the, the garen effect where he can just build attack damage and still be impossible to kill. I don't much like that, but like, that's his identity, so it's okay. [00:15:06] Speaker B: Also, the difference is Jax doesn't have healing in his kit. [00:15:12] Speaker A: My biggest problem with Jax Ult is the visual clarity around it for the stats he's gaining. [00:15:19] Speaker B: Like, yes. [00:15:20] Speaker A: NASA and Renekton, they like, physically get bigger and have the Aoe around them. Jax has little swirly do's and that's the thing. [00:15:27] Speaker B: All they need to do is have his model get 10% bigger during his ult and the clarity is fixed. [00:15:35] Speaker C: I thought they added new VFX to this alt anyway when they changed it a few times back. Very obvious. [00:15:43] Speaker B: I think in a fight it's not clear on any of his skins. [00:15:46] Speaker C: I thought, I thought they gave him like a orb shield thing. [00:15:50] Speaker B: It's a particle effect around him. It varies depending on which skin. But in a fight, you're not going to be able to see that detail at a glance the way you can with like Nasus or Renekton getting bigger and having the AoE around them, for. [00:16:02] Speaker A: Example, and some of the newer skins, it is a lot easier to tell than others. [00:16:07] Speaker B: Yeah, the Godstaff jacks or whatever it's called. It's much easier to see than most of his older ones might need. [00:16:14] Speaker C: Like a bar change as well. Like, yes, that would lc resurrection abilities active, whatever on champions, maybe that on jacks as well. But like, I'll grant you that, like everybody else, their change is immense. As I mentioned, Nasus, Renekton Mundo, and allowie. It's very obvious when they ult. [00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm Jax. Like, there isn't even a meaningful animation. When Jax actually casts the ult, he, like, does a brief, like, one frame move on himself that hits around him, but there's no animation for it. [00:16:47] Speaker C: It's like, it's like a strike breaker animation. [00:16:48] Speaker B: Swing his lamp or something. Yeah, exactly. [00:16:50] Speaker D: It looks like striker, if had a VFX that was a large, very visible VFX, that would be probably the main way that they could make it visual clarity without having to change a model. [00:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:05] Speaker B: Fair enough. All right. [00:17:06] Speaker A: Aatroxa get wings. When he ults. [00:17:10] Speaker C: He already gets wings. [00:17:13] Speaker A: I can go again. I got a quick one. Ziggs is getting a nerf, much to my dismay, because I was actually playing it. [00:17:21] Speaker B: A bit sad about this one because of the type of nerf it is, but I get it. [00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So Ziggs is passive short fuse, which is after short time, he gets the empowered auto attack they used to deal. 150% bonus damage to structures. It's cut in half. It's now 75% bonus damage to structures, which fair. I it sucks as play as a Ziggs player, but that auto did so much damage to towers. [00:17:55] Speaker C: I hate this too, because, like, that's the whole point is, like, if you leave Ziggs in a side lane, you deserve what's coming to you, and, I don't know. I don't like this. [00:18:06] Speaker B: My issue with this is that the satisfying chunks out of buildings is the satisfying power fantasy part of Ziggs. It's that and when you land a great ult, I would have been so much happier if they had special cased Ziggs AP ratio on his regular autos to do less damage so that his passive was super strong, but his regular autos sucked compared to other mages on turrets. Yeah, they'd have to tie that into the passive like description so it'd be clear to players. But I would have been so much happier with that, even if it would have the same net result of reducing his turret damage. [00:18:40] Speaker D: I mean, the overall thing, he's still gonna be probably second best hurt taker in the game. [00:18:45] Speaker B: He's still the best, but he's now a little bit better than Tristana. Instead of heads and shoulders above Tristana, who is the clear second best. [00:18:54] Speaker C: Yeah. When you're talking about bot lane characters. [00:18:58] Speaker B: In terms of just ability to quickly take a turret, I would just say those two Fiora Fiora's fast. She's not as fast as those two. [00:19:08] Speaker D: Tristana. Tristana almost entirely kills a turret just after she does her explosion. And Ziggs can, like, foreshadow tower. [00:19:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Fiora needs a demolish prop to do that sort of thing, so. [00:19:19] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:19:22] Speaker A: All right, who's next? [00:19:25] Speaker C: So speaking of turrets, they changed the turrets around a bit. And so the reason that they listed in the patch for changing the turrets is to try to reduce the number of lane swaps in pro play. That doesn't matter for us. I'm not going to talk about it. What matters for us is what they actually changed. They made top and mid lane turrets tankier in the first five minutes. That also doesn't really matter for us that much. What actually matters to me is the buff that they gave turret defenses. When you take down a plate. When you take down a plate, if you didn't know this already, they gain bonus at armor and magic resist per plate destroyed for 20 seconds. And it's based on how many enemy champions are nearby? It used to be. Go ahead. [00:20:15] Speaker B: I was gonna say they also just get flat bonus armor and mister per plate until the turret is dead or plates fall. They're two separate buffs, and they changed both parts. [00:20:25] Speaker C: Yes. They get extra armor magnifiers for every plate you destroy, period, but they also get a temporary 22nd boost when you're destroying plates. When you're actively destroying plates. That was 45 per nearby enemy champion, and I do mean per champion cutoff. As far as I'm aware. It starts at 145 for one and scaled up to five because there's five enemy champions. It went from 45 per champion to 20 per champion, which is large because even. Even with the buff to bonus armor measures per plate destroyed, they still now have less. Less on them, less defensive stats. Just destroying one plate if you're by yourself and if you have to have, what, two people, three people with you before it starts mattering. [00:21:18] Speaker B: Let me give you the numbers on how silly this gets. If you have a five man take a plate, that turret will have 115 less armor per plate taken for that 22nd period than it would have had last patch. [00:21:34] Speaker C: Yeah. The reason I think this matters for us down. Down here, not in pro play, is that four man bots already a thing. You're going to get multiple plates off of it. Now you're going to get two plates off of it instead of one, I think. [00:21:48] Speaker B: I think, or more likely three instead of two, because you were already pretty easily getting two. [00:21:55] Speaker C: You'd always get one, sometimes get two. But now you'll just always get two and sometimes get three. This. I am not too happy about this one. But, hey, I am also happy because I am not a bot lane anymore, because fuck that lane, which I find. [00:22:14] Speaker B: Hilarious since I've become a bot laner again. [00:22:17] Speaker C: Oh, you poor thing. That was a poor decision. [00:22:20] Speaker B: It's been great so far. Let's finish the patch notes so we can briefly talk about it if you want. So I'll go next. [00:22:30] Speaker C: Go for it. [00:22:31] Speaker B: Malphite got a buff. It's really straightforward and simple, so it's not going to take me very long to cover. So Malphite's passive gives him a shield. If he hasn't taken damage for 8 seconds, it scales based on his Max hP. It went from 9% max hp to 10% max hp. [00:22:47] Speaker A: Yay. [00:22:48] Speaker B: This is a big deal because malphite is generally played as a laner, not a jungler. And that shield is his trading pattern. He trades every time the shield is up because he has a buffer before the damage actually sticks to him. That buffer's bigger, like, and your first item should be health, because, goddamn it, don't build fucking thornmail first, build a fucking sunfire cape or hollow radiance as appropriate to your lane opponent. [00:23:18] Speaker C: That's a good point, though. I hadn't thought of it. Like, in the jungle, he's now just a healthier clear now. [00:23:23] Speaker B: He does, but his clip doesn't juggle that much. [00:23:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, it just doesn't. [00:23:29] Speaker D: It's a brief preview from what it sounds like for the next patch. This is a huge deal. Based on item changes, we'll. [00:23:36] Speaker B: We'll get there in two weeks. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Just as, like, a. At level one. Like, if you don't have a Doran shield just on his base health, it's an extra, like, seven health on the shield. Like, scaling up by a lot as soon as you start buying more health. [00:23:56] Speaker B: Yup. [00:23:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:57] Speaker B: And you're always buying either a Doran's shield or a Doran's ring to start. So it's more like ten health at level one on the shield. And that's every time you trade. You are ten health healthier than you were last patch. Basically. It adds up fast. [00:24:12] Speaker A: Yep. [00:24:16] Speaker B: As someone who loves picking malphite to say fuck you to Zeds and Yasuos, I'm very happy about this. [00:24:24] Speaker C: All right, AP items go. [00:24:28] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [00:24:30] Speaker D: We can go with AP malphite when we talk about these ones. They're his favorite items. [00:24:35] Speaker B: I don't play AP malphite. I play full fucking tank and still top damage meters. [00:24:40] Speaker D: There are, there are a sweet. This is probably the most amount of changes that are in anything are the AP item changes. And that's not saying much because they're mostly small, uh, fairly small dimmer tweaks, damage percentage, nerfs. So Ludens got 50 gold cheaper, gained five ap and lost five. Haste pretty good overall. Shadowflame lost five. Aptain gained three. Magic pen, they changed the max health threshold for its activation to 40%, which is pretty good. And the pet to dot damage bonus got dropped from 30% to 25% overall. Probably net positive for shadow flame. It's activating earlier, it's got more magic pet five ap is a decent loss for that. And storm surge, you gain five more magic pen, you're losing 3% movement speed. They're changing the health threshold for the explosion from 35% to 25%, and they've just removed the 10% squall range penalty. [00:25:50] Speaker B: That's the part I'm unhappy about. [00:25:51] Speaker D: Probably just a great buff for storm surge in general. The percent threshold could kill people if you had enough burst on it, but having it go from 35% to 25% just means it's almost a guaranteed explosion kill now. [00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It's easier to trigger, it's more magic pen. There's no penalty. If you're buying it as ranged, you lose 3% move speed. It's a huge buff. [00:26:15] Speaker D: So overall, these are big buffs to burst mages. [00:26:22] Speaker C: The health threshold on storm surge, storm raider health threshold. That's the health threshold of how much damage you have to do at one, one chunk to. Yep, to trigger it. Okay, so it's more like it'll trigger more often. [00:26:35] Speaker B: Yes, easier to trigger it. More pen. No penalty for ranged -3% move speed. Who gives a shit? [00:26:43] Speaker D: Yeah, the movement speed is useful, but the buffs you gain are way over compensating. These things are very large buffs for burst mages, for poke mages. This is the. They want you to start having mages again. And these are the best way to kill mid ad carries is to have a burst mage blow them the fuck up, or an assassin blow them the fuck up. And since assassins aren't as common burst. [00:27:09] Speaker B: Mages, I am looking forward to seeing all of the amazing pros pulling out LeBlanc with these changes. I am not looking forward to all the people in my solo queue who think they're fake are pulling out LeBlanc after these changes. [00:27:22] Speaker A: I'm not looking forward to remembering Fizz as a champion because he's the only one I ever see building storm surge. Currently, it should change with this, but every time I see fizz, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a champion. [00:27:36] Speaker B: The best user of it. [00:27:37] Speaker D: Last patch, the most common item storm surge was built on was ap malphite. It was his favorite item, and it hasn't changed. [00:27:46] Speaker C: Yep, I believe it. So my last change is Lily in nerfs. Lily has been strong in the jungle for ever since they made AP junglers strong in the jungle because she's a really good AP jungler. [00:28:05] Speaker B: Because she was good prior to all of the buster AP junglers. [00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Her nerfs are so her passive, dream laden bow does damage over time. It has a damage cap to monsters. It was 70 to 100 scaling on level. Now it's just 65 at all levels, so doesn't do as much damage. Although I think that's. Is that per tick or is that total? [00:28:37] Speaker B: I believe that is per tick, yeah. [00:28:40] Speaker C: Okay, so it's not super easy to get to 65 damage per tick on Lilia. So. [00:28:48] Speaker B: All right, I checked. According to the wiki, it is damage over 3 seconds. So that 65 would be the over 3 seconds, not the per tick. [00:28:59] Speaker C: Okay, so that's like 20% very easy to get to. That's easy to get to. [00:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty easy to hit against monsters. When you're talking about, like, red and blue, buff or epic monsters, it's not easy against anything else. [00:29:12] Speaker C: Yes, that's true. So, nerf to her jungle clear. But not a severe nerf, just a slight tap. The other nerf to her, was that her ultimate lilting lullaby? The sleep duration was scaling from two to 2.5 seconds. Now it's just 2 seconds at all ranks. I don't know if I even noticed that it scaled. [00:29:33] Speaker B: Is this now the worst scaling ultimate ability in the entire game? With ranks, here's what you get. Here's what you get for ranking up your ultimate as Lilia. Now 20 seconds less cooldown and 50 damage. That's it. [00:29:51] Speaker D: Yes. That's literally worse scaling ult. I think I've ever heard one of those form change alts. [00:29:57] Speaker C: Like, no, it's not. The worst rise's ult exists. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Hey, he gets a rice gains range, and it has a passive on his Q. That makes his Q hit harder when it's. [00:30:07] Speaker C: Oh, it has a passive on his Q. Okay, I didn't know that. [00:30:09] Speaker B: Yeah, rise. This is so bad. It might be worth skipping level eleven and 16 actually getting other skills. [00:30:18] Speaker D: Rise have ranks on his ultimate. I thought he didn't know. [00:30:21] Speaker A: Yeah, his. [00:30:21] Speaker C: Yeah, he gets. [00:30:22] Speaker A: His EQ gets 40, 7100 percent damage. [00:30:25] Speaker C: Both extra damage. Yeah, yeah. [00:30:27] Speaker A: They did that specifically because people were not ultimately ultimate. [00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. I remember the radius isn't. The radius and range isn't long. [00:30:37] Speaker B: I'd have to check, but I think it might be worth skilling up one of Lillia's other abilities instead of putting a second 3rd rank in her. [00:30:42] Speaker C: I'm pretty sure. [00:30:43] Speaker B: And that's really sad. I hate when that's the case. [00:30:48] Speaker D: If you damage per target, you hit that with a single ability you cast with anything else. And I'm pretty sure every other ability will deal as much or more with a scale rank. [00:30:59] Speaker B: That's so bad. I'm actually so annoyed that that's what they changed about Lilia. [00:31:05] Speaker A: I don't know. It's one of those because the 20 seconds per rank at the first rank, it doesn't feel like a lot. But then not having 40 seconds off at 16 is significant. So it might be like you skip eleven and then level it at 1516 type deal. [00:31:20] Speaker B: Possibly. But also, are you ulting on cooldown already? [00:31:24] Speaker C: Yes. Well, so Lilly's ult is like nocturne's ulta in that it unlocks her ability to gank effectively. She can kinda gank without it, but effective ganks need her ult, eh, maybe. [00:31:37] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:31:37] Speaker A: That's why it's like the eleven mark isn't that big, but you'll notice missing 40 seconds at level 16. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Maybe. [00:31:47] Speaker C: True. [00:31:47] Speaker B: All right, I'm gonna talk about a change no one's gonna fucking notice. Not because the champion doesn't get play, but because it's really mild. But I think it's less mild than people realize. Viego got a change. He gained three base ad and lost five bonus damage to monsters on his Q passive. Now that sounds like. Oh, surely that balances out right? Early on. You're getting two Q passive procs every four to 5 seconds. You're getting a lot more autos than that. Because he has an attack speed steroid. He's still gonna clear noticeably faster with this change. Like, this is enough that it's like one to two less autos to kill. Red Buff gromp and blue buff kind of buff. [00:32:37] Speaker D: This is going to be a big, big change to his first clear and a negligible change to his second. [00:32:44] Speaker B: And it's also a significant buff to his dueling power. The idea adds up. [00:32:49] Speaker D: Viego is a champion that. That is a highlight reel champion. And they want to see him. And the biggest problem has been other people have been massively outscaling him in the jungle, outspeeding him in the jungle, not out scaling. And when he gets to clear, I mean, both. He is very fun to see. It's very fun to play. If you can play a lot of champions. [00:33:13] Speaker B: Yup. I love playing Viego for that very reason, because I'm a crazy person who plays everything. [00:33:19] Speaker D: Viego is possibly the best champion to see played on a pro scene, and that is why this very small buff is a very big thing, because that's probably going to open him up to being at least a decent option. [00:33:35] Speaker B: He's possibly the highest skill ceiling champion in the game. [00:33:38] Speaker A: The first time I ever played Cassante was a game where I was playing Viego, and I learned I didn't know what Cassante's kid did. [00:33:48] Speaker B: That reminds me, I still need to actually play Aurora so that when I steal her body, I know what the hell I'm doing. [00:33:55] Speaker C: Jesus. No, you know what you're doing when you steal Aurora's body? You're pressing r to get out of aurora's body. [00:34:00] Speaker B: No, no. [00:34:02] Speaker D: You're pressing w so that you can go invisible for a couple seconds. [00:34:06] Speaker B: She builds ap bruiser. You're blowing people up with way too much damage while also going invisible, and then you're ulting them to finish the job. [00:34:14] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:15] Speaker B: I just need to actually play with it so I know how to use her abilities. [00:34:18] Speaker C: That's true. [00:34:20] Speaker B: All right, who's got anything left? [00:34:23] Speaker A: I do still. [00:34:24] Speaker D: Oh, here, go. [00:34:26] Speaker A: Yeah, mine will be quick. Mine, I got smolder. So smolder there. They're light taps, but it's like, you know, a couple light taps in a row, because they really don't want to see smulder played in three lanes at worlds. So his base health is going down by 30, from 605 to 575, making him even squishier. His q is losing five base damage at all ranks and losing its ap ratio entirely. It had a 15% ap ratio. That's going away. And his w, the achoo is losing five base damage at all ranks, and the damage to minions is going down by seven at all ranks, which I'm sure is specific to make him miss a threshold. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I think literally, just to deter the specific, like, you can echo and then q to farm early on kind of things. [00:35:33] Speaker D: It's the splash damage one. It used to be once he unlocked the. The splash on his q, you could achoo and then splash kill with a q. [00:35:44] Speaker A: So, yeah, with those damaged nerfs, that's probably gonna be. You need a little bit more ad to do that because AP won't help. And oftentimes smolders, it was viable to go. And ap items like third or fourth, whether that be liandries or zhonyas, is actually pretty common on him. It's a little bit less efficient to do that now because his q doesn't have an AP ratio. As bad as it was, it was still a ratio. [00:36:11] Speaker D: Yeah, the bad ratio. It doesn't matter as much when you can cast it as often as you can cast his q. [00:36:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:19] Speaker B: Sounds literally like, what, a two second cooldown. Once you've got your shogun and your. [00:36:23] Speaker D: Core, it's an ezreal queue. It's always up. [00:36:29] Speaker B: I should know. I played him literally yesterday, but. Oh, well. All right, give us our last change that we wanted to highlight, Mike. [00:36:37] Speaker D: All right. The last real meaningful change that we're releasing that is just a small number. We're seeing changes to both the shield items for your eighties. So you're getting a shield change with bloodthirster and immortal shield bow. Bloodthirster's shield is. There's changing its little base ratios a little bit from 50 to 400. Levels one to 18. You were never getting it at level one. So they've essentially cut away the early level power of it and just tuned it around 165 to 315, eight to 18. And then they've taken 3% life steal off. [00:37:19] Speaker A: So if you're the draven that gets the massive level five cash in and you come back with a bloodthirster level five through eight, it'll be 165 that whole time. [00:37:27] Speaker D: Yes. And that's a hefty, meaningful nerf to that shield. 85 shield is a good change to loss. And the 15% lifesteal that it has. 3% lifesteal is a good loss. [00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:47] Speaker D: Real strong. [00:37:48] Speaker B: It's one of those things. It means literally nothing for your ability to heal up between fights. And it means the world in terms of your ability to survive a close. [00:37:57] Speaker A: Duel, especially for, like, honestly, we didn't touch on it. Miss Fortune got a tiny, tiny nerf. This is like a bigger nerf to miss Fortune than the nerf she got, because Miss Fortune rushes this and doesn't build attack speed. So in a fight, every little bit of light steal you get from your hits counts. [00:38:14] Speaker B: And they literally said in her patch, note that the bloodthirster changes why she didn't get bigger nerfs. [00:38:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it was just like a couple base id. [00:38:22] Speaker D: The other half of this is that the immortal shield bows. Got a change on its shield. It went from 320 to 720 to 400 to 700. And that's mainly champions. And they changed it from range to 320 to 560. [00:38:38] Speaker A: All right, back to not buying it. Yay. [00:38:41] Speaker D: It is useless again for ad carries. And I don't know how many melee champions want it. [00:38:50] Speaker A: It's not useless. There is use cases for it. Specifically. Specifically against fed ad assassins. You're still gonna want to build this later. [00:38:59] Speaker D: Every ounce of shield you can get to keep your alive is useful. But how often is it that you'd have your shield bow pop and you wouldn't even see it? [00:39:08] Speaker B: Also, in many cases, you were better off just buying an actual armor item against those fed ad assassins because one armor item negates pretty much all of their lethality. [00:39:19] Speaker D: I don't see why would you build a shield bow when you could just get a ga? Yeah, you're gonna go for a different crit item anyways. You're gonna have your full four crit items get a ga. [00:39:30] Speaker A: It's because you can get it. And Bloodthirster is the reasoning and still have your full forkright. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Which is why they've been nerfed. [00:39:39] Speaker A: Yes. [00:39:43] Speaker D: Yeah, that's it. [00:39:46] Speaker B: All right. So tangent that we set up earlier, that kind of happened impromptu. Yeah. So I've been playing ad carry the past few days because what I've noticed in my drop from emerald to golden, that is not hyperbole. Oh, my God, I wish it was. Is in the elo bracket I'm in at the times of day that I play. And those are important qualifiers. ADC's are the dumbest people in my games consistently on both teams. It is. I'm not close. [00:40:19] Speaker A: As someone who mains ad carry, I agree. I'm the dumbest person on my team a lot of the time. [00:40:24] Speaker B: So I started playing ADC because I was like, you know what? I'll be the ADC. I'm smart enough to go, oh, they're setting up to four man dive. Let me walk away and give over the turret instead of giving over a kill. And the turret, the thing that none of my ad carries ever do no matter how much warning they have that they're about to get dove. So far I'm six and three. It's been working pretty well. [00:40:51] Speaker A: You know what's funny is you have that tangent in, like the anecdote you just told about not getting dove. You told that tangent in our discord a few days ago and literally, I was in a situation of, oh, a bunch of people are coming to form and dive me. Jax would be disappointed if I don't walk away right now. [00:41:08] Speaker B: It's the right play. You're going to lose no matter what you do, so minimize your loss and the fact that I'm willing to do that. So far, I'm three and one on Tristana and every other ADC I've played once, so I don't know how big I want to put the weight on those games. But yeah, it turns out I can bait the enemy ADC into dumb fights that they lose because I'm Tristana and I'm an amazing duelist and I cannot die because I'm not an idiot and everyone else is. And removing the idiots in the bot lane has got me six and three so far. Will it continue? I don't know, but I'm enjoying it at the moment. After how miserable everything else is, I'm at least back in plat nice for now. We'll see how long that lasts. [00:41:55] Speaker A: Isn't a ranked split ending soon? [00:41:58] Speaker D: Yes. [00:41:59] Speaker B: Like that's gonna stop me from playing. [00:42:01] Speaker A: I know. I'm just curious because I don't know if I'm gonna be able to climb much more before it ends. [00:42:06] Speaker B: As of when we are recording this, which is Monday the 16th, there are eight days left in the split. [00:42:13] Speaker D: Eight days and 4 hours. So you have until next Wednesday. [00:42:20] Speaker B: You want to play some games after. [00:42:22] Speaker A: Podcast at least one. [00:42:24] Speaker B: All right. Okay. With that, let's get to some listener questions because they actually wrote in some questions for us. Thank you, guys. We really do appreciate the questions. Again, right into the four wards, podcastmail.com, so we can answer your questions on the show. Alright, so Leon is our first question tonight. And Leon writes, how do people one trick a champion? I typically pick a champion to match team comp. I also tend not to play a champion for a while if I have a bad performance. Is this a bad way to play the game? How do one tricks have the perseverance to play the same champion no matter the matchup? And I'm gonna let you guys answer this because I play 50 championship. I am the worst person to ask this question. [00:43:06] Speaker C: Uh, go ahead. No, you. [00:43:10] Speaker A: Okay. Well, I think I was the closest to a one trick for a while on this podcast with how much I played Ezreal. And granted the reason for that was just like for me personally, he was one of the first ad carries that I clicked with and in the role I started to main and like, to me, it feels like his skill set is like. Like it is. The play pattern of that specific champion doesn't feel like exists exactly on a lot, unlike many other champions. So it's kind of a unique archetype of a champion that is fun to me and I could get decently good with like. It's one of the reasons the advice we give a lot of the time is to pick two or three champions to play in ranked, because if you only play one or two or three champions, you're going to be a lot better at them. You're going to learn their matchups a lot better, learn thresholds of when it's safe to trade, when it's not. And now that's the theory behind it. In practice, I run into people with 5 million mastery on a champion in gold. So they're still probably 50 50 a lot of their games, but yeah, really is. It just comes down to like, that's the way people want to have fun with the game, is just by playing that champion. That's why I feel like most commonly, the champions you see getting one tricked are the ones that have a different play pattern compared to a lot of others. Like, Shako has a lot of one tricks, Riven has a lot of one tricks. Champions like that, that, like, don't fit the mold. I don't know too many people that one trick. Garenae. I know a few, but not a ton. [00:45:02] Speaker C: So, for me, it is easier to one trick a champion if you are either a jungler, a bot laner, or a support, mid and top have a harder time doing it. Not that they can't, just that mid and top tend to be more matchup dependent than the other than the other positions. So that thought of, I need to change what I'm playing based on the matchup is more prevalent in top and mid than the other positions. So that's one thing. The other thing for me, as I'm playing jungle, the more I play a champion, the better I get with it. The faster my clears become. And jungle is all about having a fast clear. It's extremely valuable to me to be playing the same champion over and over and over and over. [00:45:54] Speaker A: Yep. [00:45:56] Speaker B: I just want to say free. You said you're probably the closest to a one trick. How many champions do you think crush has played in ranked? This split. [00:46:05] Speaker C: This split is not fair. [00:46:07] Speaker A: I was gonna say, how many games does crush play this split? [00:46:10] Speaker B: Only about half as many as you. It's not actually that much less than you'd think. [00:46:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:46:15] Speaker B: Three, two. He's played five games of Lilia. And every other game has been nocturne in just twice as many games. In just twice as many games. Free shooter, you've played twelve champions. [00:46:31] Speaker A: To be fair, I am been one tricking way less this season than I have any other season. [00:46:36] Speaker B: I know. [00:46:37] Speaker D: I'm just saying as a bit of a counter to that for crushed, the most common one tricks I see are top laners. Riven, Irelia, teemo. I see Shaco topped a lot. These are champions that have high skill expressions. And I think that's the main thing with a lot of one tricks, is they're champions that have a very, very broad skill. [00:47:07] Speaker C: That reminds me of the thing that I wanted to bring up and forgot to is that one of the ways that people can just one trick a champion and not care about the matchup and play it into every matchup, one tricking a champion gives you unique insight on that champion, to the point where you don't necessarily care about the matchup, even if you're gonna one trick the champion. You're like, I know that I can do x. Does my opponent know that, that I can do X? And then you check and see if they know, and if they don't, then you win the matchup anyway. It doesn't matter what, what the matchup is like. That's a, that's a very common thing for one tricks, is that they know because they played that one champion so much, they know all the matchups, so they can actually just be like, I know that I'm supposed to lose this matchup, but do they know that I'm supposed to lose this matchup? [00:48:06] Speaker B: I do want to say I agree with Mike that most of the places I see one tricks are jungle and top, and I think top laner, it really can be boiled down to top lane is an island. Top lane is the like, do or die, I'm going to duel you and win mindset. And those players are the ones most likely to be attracted to one tricking. On a psychological level, I agree with that. [00:48:27] Speaker C: Like, like, top laners, the, the top laners who are one tricked are that type of champion that will beat you through skill expression. I think Aatrox is another relatively. [00:48:44] Speaker B: Popular to one trick, but I blame the boss for that. [00:48:47] Speaker D: It's the boss. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:49] Speaker C: Fair enough. [00:48:50] Speaker A: But actually, I, what I was gonna. [00:48:51] Speaker B: Say is, by comparison, I think ad carry is the least one tricked by far. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Exactly what I was about to say by far. Mm hmm. ADC's the most like follows the meta role. Besides draven players. [00:49:04] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. [00:49:06] Speaker A: And Vayne players. But a lot of them go top anyway. [00:49:10] Speaker B: Well, and they're more likely whenever vayne's out of meta to actually switch than Draven players are when Draven is out of meta. [00:49:17] Speaker A: You know when that change happened? When the Vayne player started switching? When Kai'sa came out? [00:49:21] Speaker B: Yep. Cause she's like vayne, except one of them is always better than the other. [00:49:27] Speaker A: That's honestly kind of the thing with bot lane is in a lot of cases, like if there was a one trickable champion, another champion with a similar archetype probably came out cause they ran out of ideas for ad carries. It's like Jyn Zeri are two of the, like, most unique ad carries. And even then, Zeri's like your Q is your auto, but even then, your player patterns are similar to a lot of others. [00:49:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:54] Speaker C: And then you find the aphelios one. [00:49:56] Speaker B: Tricks, they do exist. And that's the thing is like one tricks exist everywhere. I think it really just comes down to they enjoy playing their one champion. They don't feel the urge or the drive to play different things every game. If I play the same thing every game, I get fucking bored. I play too many other video games to be willing to just play the same champion every single game. I can't do it. So let's get one more question in before we wrap up for the night. Cause Prince of winners wrote it. Prince of winners writes. Hi Prince of winners here. How do you decide whether to pick a snowballing champion, a utility focused champion or a scaling champion in solo queue? This solo queue. Pick a snowballing champion. No, no. [00:50:47] Speaker D: Most of the time snowball is very the correct answer. But the answer really is how are you at playing? Because if you are thinking that you can do like if you are playing in a not snowball champion, you need to be able to know how to close things out. [00:51:07] Speaker B: Here's the thing. Personally, I agree with you if psychology wasn't a thing, but solo queue is this is the world of forfeit 15 because we're down three kills. Play a snowball champion, get an early lead. It does not matter that your champion falls off because statistically, more often than not, you will win the game because they forfeit. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Oh my God. I have two great examples of this in recent games that thankfully the rest of the team didn't forfeit of. We had a rise that was losing lane to an Annie and was just tilted off the planet about it. And we're all like, you are rise play the game. Stop typing. You're gonna be fine. And guess what? He was fine. We won. And another was, I was Kog'maw and losing Lane to Jyn and Xerath. And like the rest of my team was doing fine. So I wasn't saying like anything. I was just like, you know, I said one thing in chat of like, hey, like I'm kid, you just let me get the side lane. And the team was like, oh, just be carried. Like, shut up. Just be carried. And I'm like, okay, but like I'm trying. I'm scaling too. Like just if you fall behind, I know that I'm still gonna be useful later. Like, you don't if you're on a scaling champion. Like my team was like, oh my God, this kogma, he's doing bad. He's like, he's useless. He's never gonna help. And I'm like, I'm good, I'm fine. [00:52:38] Speaker B: Yup. Especially since Kogma only needs like three items for full DP's and after that he literally builds tank. Anyway. [00:52:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:47] Speaker C: You know when you play a utility focused champion, when you're tired of thinking, yeah, I just want to throw an asphalt at this group of people and call it a day. [00:52:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:53:03] Speaker C: Utility focus is basically just kind of like admitting, look, I don't care about laning phase. It can go one way or the other. I don't care. I'm still going to be useful later on no matter what. I don't need to scale. I am always useful. But then the last thing you can do is to just pick Lucian in the top lane and then that's all the champions. He's got utility breaking in on the towers and he snowballs really well. And then he also scales and kills the nexus before anybody else can. [00:53:31] Speaker B: There it is. Thank you. I was waiting for it. Guys. This has been episode 447 of the Forwards podcast. Crush is out of practice on the Lucian tops because he's been gone for a few weeks. But we appreciate it anyway. I've been Jack Soman for Crush, you for free shooter, and for Mike at many names. Have a great night. [00:53:52] Speaker D: See you around. [00:53:53] Speaker C: Bye. [00:53:55] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Forewords podcast. If you liked what you heard and you want to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com, the Forwardspodcast to give us some support. We appreciate you and of course listeners. Please don't forget to write your questions into the forwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer them on the show.