[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, what's up? It's Eric Brah, voice of Draven Jerks and Velkoz.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: And you're listening to the Four Wards.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Podcast here to help you move forward and lead.
Hello and welcome to Four Wards podcast, episode 456. I'm Jack Soman. I'm your host as usual. And I've got with me three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Free Shooter back this week.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Oh, despite my illness, I have returned from the depths of printing hell.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Welcome back from hell. We've also got Pillow Pet.
[00:01:01] Speaker D: Hello. Despite my work, I'm back from work hell.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Welcome back from work hell. And last and certainly least this week after the hell he put me through in editing last week, it's Mike of many names.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: I never left and I'm still in work hell.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Aren't we all?
That's life in 2024.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: I'm just saying. All right, guys, we are the Forwards podcast. We do have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. See if we can get in some games. We've been trying to just make it happen periodically at random nights. We might set up an organized thing if enough of you join. So come join the Discord.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Also, you also get to see pictures of my derpy cat trying to attack wires under my desk. She's adorable.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: That there is a whole channel just for people to post pictures of their pets. It's great. Come.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: It's mostly my cats.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: The link is in the episode description. I can fix that. I have lots of pictures of critters.
Guys, we are also. We do stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV Jacksomen.
Free shooter can be found at Twitch TV Freeshooter. That's right. There are three E's in free. Pillow pet can be found at Twitch TV. Pillow pet and Mike can be found at Twitch TV Katsura 444. The link will be in the episode description. You should be joining the Discord because he is going to be streaming and you can pick what game he's gonna play.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's a little bit of a thing. Next. So this coming Sunday from probably like noon, give a date the 24th, I will be streaming from noon Central to 6 Central. Just six hours. I'll be dropping my entire list of Steam games and then anything else you want me to do.
Six hours is what I'm going to be going for.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Perfect. So give him a follow and join the Discord and tell him what to play.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: I will be picking out from the Discord numbers. Yeah.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: So we also got a shout out Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet and Robagon for supporting us at the shout out tier on Patreon.
Guys, we are on Patreon. If you head on over to patreon.com theforwards podcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio from our prep work before each show and $10 a month will get you that feed and we shout you out just like those three.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: This week we gave our opinions on the Game awards.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: It's true, we did.
[00:03:42] Speaker C: Among other things.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: And then argued about wow for some reason.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: It's true.
No one knows why.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Come join the Patreon if you want to hear that.
Last but not least, listeners, you're not getting chewed out this week because some of you did write in, but we need more questions right into the forwards podcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show.
All right, Me and Mike kind of touched it briefly last week, but now the whole crew is here and we've had some actual time with her. We're going to talk about Ambessa.
[00:04:20] Speaker D: And.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: I'm just going to throw it off to start to our resident top laner Pillow Pet. Tell us about Embessa.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: So my first opinions of Embessa is she is she seems relatively balanced. She doesn't see like too overly powerful, but her dashes make her very strong. As far as you cannot really kite her away or kite her away from her.
You have to make sure that you're adjusting and playing around that just initially and then playing as a bessa. Like you have to make sure you are weaving in your autos otherwise you're going. You can sure you can use all your abilities to chase someone down, but you're gonna be useless without weaving in those autos because you don't have a resource anymore. So you're not gonna be able to use any abilities. So she's got a really good fun kit. We mentioned it earlier, she does feel very feast or famine like she either has good games or it's just like she's useless that it might just be me because I'm not like, you know, I got old man hands. So I'm trying to play this new champion and I'd have a really good game with her. She felt really strong and then the next game I'd go in and it felt pretty weak to me.
So it's kind of hard to say. I think her passive on her ultimate's really good. She seems like a very simple kitted champion, which is nice. It's not a paragraph long. Passives and abilities with 800 different effects. So she felt pretty good. She's got some good counters, and her dashes don't go over walls. So it's. It's pretty good.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: One thing I think is hilarious because I didn't realize this. I thought her alt would act kind of like yone ult. No. If she misses her ult, she just doesn't move and looks like an idiot. And it's hilarious.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: It's pretty great how often people will try to use it like yone ult to escape and then wonder why they're dead.
[00:06:30] Speaker D: It's. It's. It's pretty embarrassing. It's got a weird interaction, too. I feel like we were playing a game the other night, and I used it like it targeted a specific champion. And for some reason, it hit like a champion that wasn't even in the line. And so I don't understand. It might have been just the weird targeting because I was in river and they were out of river, so it could have been.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: I think it was a case of lollipopping, because I think it does lollipop the way lots of skill shots do. And it latches onto the last person it hits.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Which is what really feels funky when you have multiple people in a line.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah. As opposed to every other line art that you've seen. No one besides the last person in that line is affected.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yep. Mike and I also got to experience the joy of how immune to slows she is. Just fundamentally because of her kit. Like, slows don't do anything.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So you'd imagine that someone with that many dashes would be a great person for poppy to play against. Nope. Doesn't matter. You can block a dash, Slow her down with a frozen gauntlet. Iceborne gauntlet. And she will not only catch up to you, but she will overtake you. And then just in the case, because you're a poppy out duel you because you don't have the damage to take her down. And she can heal.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: And she never gets hit by both sides of q. Yeah.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: She's. She is disgustingly clingy. That doesn't necessarily mean she can chase you down forever. There are plenty of people who can run away from her. But if you are caught in her first section, if she gets her cue on you that's slow. You're not going anywhere.
[00:08:10] Speaker D: What do you guys feel like? How do you feel about her builds? Do you think people are building all right, or do. Do you think it's still trying to be figured out?
[00:08:19] Speaker A: I think the. The common rush is wrong.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: I do too, but we disagree on what we think the correct common rush is.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Oh, go ahead. What do you think the first rush should be or is and then should be?
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Should be Ravenous Hydra.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: I believe it should be Spear because she is so cool down gated.
[00:08:41] Speaker D: So I've been rushing Ravenous, and it feels really good into, like, melee matchups just because you just win in sustained. And then I've tried it in ranged matchups, and it is not the way to go. Even with the sustain, you just get bullied completely. Like, I had. I had to go against a Teemo last night, and, I mean, I just got decimated. Even with full sustain and, like, rushing magic resist.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: I mean, to be fair, I feel like Teemo should be good against her since he blinds her so she loses her energy. Like restore functionality for three seconds. Like Teemo should be good against her.
[00:09:23] Speaker D: I mean, those three seconds, so she can just spam her abilities and not have to worry about the blind. So they. He has to, like, time the blame. But that's. Yeah, neither near. I like. I feel like her build needs to be more AD focused. A lot of people I see like building, like, HP and her none of her abilities scale with hp. Everything's an ad scaling.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: I think the only thing that has HP scaling is her percent shred.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: And it's not scaling with her hp, it's scaling with her target.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: It's going with their enemies hp. Yeah.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: So, I mean, I figure you just want HP because, like, you're bruiser.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
From what? I don't know if Pillow is agreeing with me on this one, but from the amount that I've played with her, both in top end and jungle, she needs.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: She.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: She needs to stay to the core. Like Bruiser items, you want things that have health, things that have damage, and if they don't have one, they need to have an abundance of the other.
So a lot of people I see rushing Eclipse because even though it doesn't have health, it's got a shield. It does have health now, doesn't it? They changed it.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: No, no, no. Health, AD ability, haste, and the shield. Proc.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's a good item. I don't think that's her first item. I think you need something else and then maybe go into Eclipse afterwards, but you need to do something like that. Or something like the blood Mail. If you're going to go with the other action to that you're not going to get.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: I mean, that's never a first item.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: It's never a first. No, no, no, no, no. That's what I'm talking about. Like, if you're going to go for one of the others, something that isn't decor, like mix between the two, you need to have something on the sides.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: See, to me, she screams Build her like riven. Which is why I say Ravenous Hydra. It makes you able to sustain up on every wave. Absurdly, it makes you a duelist monster because it's a shitload of AD and it has ability haze, so it feels good for that. And then here's the fun part.
Her Ultimate Passive gives her healing from her spells that scales with her life steal. The scaling ratio does not change from rank one to rank three. You get the same amount of extra healing from your spells from your life steal at all ranks.
Which is why I feel like Ravenous is the clear best rush on her, because you just get full value immediately and it does everything you want. I definitely can see why she would struggle into ranged going ravenous, but I don't think she has a good option into range. So Ravenous is still going to let her sustain and farm better than the others.
[00:12:06] Speaker D: So I think like one of her best items other than Spear Shojin is. I feel like Death Stance is just incredible.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Death Stance is disgusting on her.
[00:12:17] Speaker C: That item is disgusting in general.
[00:12:20] Speaker D: Like, just in general. Yeah, the great item. But on her, it just feels so strong.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: It's. It's because she has so many tools with her sustain from her ult passive and her shield that scales with AD at 175% bonus AD ratio, by the way, that she can delay the deferred damage long enough to kill you and then it's all refunded. She doesn't take any more of it. It cleanses the debuff. Because that's how Death Stance works.
[00:12:49] Speaker C: Okay, question. Because I was just looking at her items and I forgot this item exists. But she has a million dashes, so it seems synergistic. A Voltaic cyclo sword is the common one on lethality.
[00:13:03] Speaker D: I've been using that item like as a rush on her into certain matchups. Like even when she first came out. Like, just watch it. Looking at her scaling and how good her scaling is with ad, it's a great item on her, it's like. And that's the one that does the slow Too right. It's the old dusk blade Passive.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: And that's why I think that the lethality amessa is correct if you're trying to kill range squishy champions.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Yeah. I think. Yeah. There. There are pretty much two builds on her. There's the bruiser build and the lethality build. And if you're going lethality voltaic cyclist or your core item.
And I think it's correct to always have ravenous. Don't deviate in your. Your tiamat item because she just. She needs. She wants a lifesteal item.
[00:13:52] Speaker D: Well, I mean, think about it. She does not need Titanic. It does not work good for her at all.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: No.
[00:13:56] Speaker D: And she doesn't need a stride breaker.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: And well, they're going to be profane Hydra. Yeah.
[00:14:00] Speaker D: Silly honor. So I mean, yeah, Ravenous just better.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Than profane for her.
[00:14:05] Speaker D: Like. Yeah. Ravenous is just the only item. Otherwise any other tiamat you're just trolling. I feel like unless you're trying to go a full HP tank build.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: If like Sharaldo's grudge, which is trolling. Yeah. If she all those grudge was still bound to lethality, then you'd probably be looking at profane. But Sheldon's grudge, probably her best armor pen item because now no one can run from you at all. And they're not going far.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I see. If I look up the builds that people are going, they're going like Black Cleaver. Second. A lot of the time Black Cleaver is.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Is huge. I think she wants a armor shred item.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: I. I was gonna say, I feel like the only time that's correct is when the enemy is actually a straight up tank. Otherwise.
[00:14:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Because she already gets so much armor pen from her whole passive like that.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: And you get to benefit from the way it scales, which is nice. But also if they're a straight up tank, she applies the shred really fast to be able to allow her allies to also kill them. Whereas if they're like a fighter, someone like set for example, you don't need that much extra shred to kill them. You're better off getting the Seril does so he can't escape and he's stuck in the fight with your teammates.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: I think the big difference actually, now that I'm looking between them, isn't what she wants, it's what the rest of her team has.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: If you are looking to help your team, Black Cleaver is probably better because of the shred. If you are looking to be selfish, ch'rel does.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: So I decided to check because I was curious. Since I called her Riven 2.0 last week, I wanted to compare her 175% bonus ad shield to Riven shield. Rivens is only 110% bonus ad.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: But it's also much faster. Not on a massive dash. Yeah, her shield is amazing.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: Also, she's Riven 3.0.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: It's just the shield is so big with ad scaling. And that's why I. That's why I don't think the Shojin is correct as a first item. Because it only has like 40 AD, 45 AD as opposed to Eclipse or Ravenous Hydra that have like 60 plus.
[00:16:21] Speaker D: So I'm on u gg. I don't know where you guys are looking. And it's funny that Riven is one of her hardest matchups.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Riven can counter Dodger. That's the thing. It slows do not matter to Riven. So she can always run away.
[00:16:35] Speaker D: Her worst matchup being Warwick.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: I could see that too.
That's.
[00:16:41] Speaker C: That's canon.
[00:16:42] Speaker D: And then funny enough, that's canon.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Oh, I haven't seen the new episodes of Arcane yet. Please don't spoil anything.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:16:51] Speaker D: And funny enough, her second worst matchup is Zach.
I don't know when that one surprises me.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: She has no CC to stop him.
Unless she commits to the alt, he's free to leave whenever he wants.
[00:17:05] Speaker D: That's true, I guess.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: And he actually probably has the sustain to fight her.
[00:17:11] Speaker D: So I can see. How do you guys feel about her abilities?
[00:17:16] Speaker A: They're fun. They. They do, I think, a good amount of damage without being op.
[00:17:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Have I not played her? Only playing against her, I couldn't tell you what her abilities are other than dashy spinny. Dashy spinny. Dashy spinny. Haha. She missed all.
[00:17:33] Speaker D: Pretty much.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: The last part's super true.
[00:17:36] Speaker D: Her recommended like skill order for Max is Q E. W.
How do you guys feel about that? Like me, I prefer E. I prefer maxing my E just because it lets me wipe away really quick.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: I believe it's based on who you face.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: So I think the reason for that. And there's a lot of champions that have this because of the way they share this mechanic. Her Q has two parts ranking it up. You're getting value on both halves of it. And that as a whole adds more damage per rank and more other effects per rank. Because the Q gives percent max HP damage per rank, whereas the E gives bonus AD ratio per rank.
You don't have a ton of bonus ad yet if it's your first max. So that's why I think the Q max makes the most sense is you're getting the scaling that already is in effect and then the emacs second when you already have some ad. So now you want to ramp up the ratio on it.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: So I think I have two reasons for why Q is the more recommended build.
For the most part she is played into tanks in top lane because that's where she lives and that's where British max health is usually the best option. But the other reason is because it is two separate casts. You get two procs of your passive and so that ends up being no matter what, more damage in a fight versus one person than it would be in any other scenario. And it's always correct to max Q if you go Jungle Lambessa, which is totally good, Jungle Embezza is a good.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Clear and they both lose a second per rank. So you're not even like comparing cooldown differences.
[00:19:22] Speaker D: So also I don't know if you guys knew this. I think. I think we've talked about it already. But her Q is much like has a.
It works like Darius Q where it has like a sweet spot and then it has like the dull spot like on the outside of her Q. It will do like extra damage. But it doesn't say that I don't think in her in the queue, does it?
It does.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: I don't know about in in game because I haven't played as her but like I'm looking at the wiki and it straight up says the damage is doubled against enemies hit by the outer edge.
[00:19:56] Speaker D: Yeah, it does say it honor. But yeah, fun fact that you might have missed if you were playing her or playing around her.
So try to get as a melee.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Champion fighting against Ambessa. Sit inside her model and she's sad.
[00:20:13] Speaker C: Also.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: That's what I'm hearing here.
[00:20:15] Speaker C: I think the wiki might be wrong there. I think it's not doubled on the outer edge. I think it's halved on not the outer edge. I think like the list of damages.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: I believe that's correct.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: No idea. It does say that there's a cosmetic crit on the outer edge and then the second half is on the first enemy hit instead of the outer edge.
[00:20:33] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: I don't know Overall. Final thoughts? Any other impressions of Ambessa? Anything we want to talk about?
[00:20:47] Speaker D: I like her.
I. I recommend not running flash on her.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: I play ad carry so I dislike her.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: I disagree with the flash comment simply because she has no other way ever was and so many other people do.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah. It's the same reason I think Flash is important on Udyr, even though Ghost is objectively better the rest of the time.
I definitely like seeing Ambessa on the enemy team because she's a champion that is very easy to miss. Pilot.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Girl, I think she's good for the game. She's a good. She's a good champion to go in. And she hasn't been implemented in an unhealthy state. And so she's being played properly.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: I am scared when we get the seasonal change of items that there is going to be an item that breaks her. She screams fighter. That is going to be broken fundamentally by an item that is accidentally too powerful for her.
Just like happened with Riven for a couple years until Riven was just knocked down to a. Unless you're a Riven main God, you should never play this champion state and has been left there for 10 years.
[00:22:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:22:01] Speaker C: And then they replace Riven with competitively viable Riven, AKA Aatrox.
[00:22:05] Speaker D: My fear with her right now is that she is such in a low state in top lane. As far as, like, where she ranks in top lane, 60 out of 61 with a 47 win rate. And it's gonna be the Briar treatment. I feel like it's going to be another thing of Briar. They're gonna buffer and then people are gonna learn how to play her properly and then she's going to be a monster, and then it's going to be a balancing nightmare. Like, I feel like Briar a lot different. Briar had a whole different kit and it does. I think we're going to end up going in the same circle that we always do.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: It's developed as old as time.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: I think the thing that scares me is if people find a way to do animation breaks with her because right now she's pretty solidly stuck in them. And if you can figure out a way to do it, like how Riven broke animations when people figured out how to break Riven animations, she will be disgusting.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Yep.
All right, we got another topic we want to talk about before we get to questions. So let's. Let's move on from Amessa. We may revisit if there's a major change in a patch because she'll probably get major change. So far, every other champion released this year has had a mini rework.
That's not hyperbole, by the way. Smulders is on PBE right now. He is getting a significant mini rework. We will cover it when it comes out.
[00:23:39] Speaker C: He's getting gutted.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Yes and no. We'll cover it when it comes out.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: His guts are being changed.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Yes.
So let's talk a little bit about maybe some thoughts on how to identify trends so you can identify yourself when shit changes and understand it. And we have a couple of anecdotes that we've experienced recently that are kind of the catalyst for this.
Mike, do you want to explain why Teemo Jungle has skyrocketed to triple his play rate of a month ago?
[00:24:16] Speaker A: There's an easy answer and a complex answer that goes into mechanics. We'll discuss the easy answer. A pro played it and said it was great.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: God damn it, Broxah.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, out of nowhere, literally, Teemo Jungle has been in like a third of the games that I've played alone, and I've seen him consistently everywhere.
They've. The only change, appreciable change that we've talked about at all, and we've. We've mentioned it was the movement speed, bonus increase.
That's the only change that Teemo has gotten. And suddenly we're seeing a massive increase in Teemo Jungle.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: And, and to be clear, that change was a patch ago. Two patches ago, he got an art update that was not balance changing at all.
And I'm comparing his play rate on that art update patch where there should be a ton of people like, oh, let's play the new Teemo. He got an art update to. Now it has tripled. It was worse. The patch before, I just don't have stats on that because it was a month ago.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So, like, the. The thing that we're talking about is trying to find ways to understand why this shows up. And one of the things is if you. If you look around and you don't see a bunch of balance changes for the champion, you're looking at.
There's two other reasons that they will suddenly show up.
Something that they face against has gotten a change that makes them much better in the scenarios, which I think is actually why it showed up.
And the other reason is someone very popular in the scene has just given them a showcase, and now everyone wants to try it because it looked really fun or interesting. And I think both of them happened for Teemo because what happened roughly around that same time, AD Carries became good again.
And Teemo, when he's not confined to a lane, is kind of disgusting to play against because now you have everywhere on the map is no longer safe for Shrooms. You can't assume that there's going to be a pile in an area. He can show up in any bush at any time. And he's now hunting your ad carry.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: I have had so many Teemos just in random ass bushes just waiting or not even in bushes, just random ass places, and just someone walks by and boom, he kills them.
It's. It's absolutely brutal.
Yeah. So the. The trend to identify there is understanding.
Mike noticed, oh, I'm seeing Teemo a lot. And I was like, yeah, so am I. I wonder what's going on?
And he looked into it and found, oh, it's being played by a pro. He looked at the patch and was like, oh, what is Timo good against? Timo's good against auto attackers who got strong right now. Auto attackers. So Mike put all the pieces together and that's the part we wanted to talk about is the.
It's. It's not the knowing what. It's the knowing why that can make. That can be useful. Because what, you can just listen to this podcast or go to a stat site and see a trend and be like, oh, I see Teemo's pick rate has gone up.
[00:27:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the same reason, like, some underrated champions can get played in other roles. Like, the example I'm going to give is because it's from my fives team.
If we're ever against an Israeli, we like to pick Lissandra Bot. Because Lissandra just claws in and kills Ezreal basically on repeat. Because he doesn't really have enough gap close to get away from her.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Yep. I assume with like a mage support. So you just have tons of just blow him up damage.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: Yeah, we'll do like Ezreal karma or something. But it's like Lissandra Bot, probably not great in a lot of matchups, but, like, and it's not gonna, like, show up on stat site. So if it will, it might be, like, low pick rate, but super high win rate. Like, it might be super high win rate because it's only really picked into specific matchups. It's. I mean, it's the meme we say at the end of every episode. The reason why that's a meme is because of its high win rate into a specific matchup.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Yep, it's true. So the other example I have of the same kind of phenomenon is I noticed in my games I've been playing a lot, by the way. I noticed that I'm seeing way more Graves than usual, and Graves is a champion that frustrates the shit out of me because I don't enjoy champions that have assassin play patterns, but tankiness of a bruiser. And that's what Graves does. While also having ad carry tier scaling Graves frustrates me. And I was like, it feels like he's been in a lot of games recently. What's going on? And I go and look at stat sites, and stat sites are listing him as like, s tier or op tier with, like, 51, 52% win rates and pick rates of 17 to 20%.
That was when I went, oh, oh, shit.
He's actually just OP. No champion, by the way, should have a 52% win rate.
With that high of a pick rate, that means they're op.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: The last time something like that was, like, fundamentally true, Kassadin had a 94% pick, went ban rate.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah, champions should. If they have a high pick rate, their win rate should be approximately 50%.
If it's not, that means they're popular, they're getting played constantly, and they're OP or underpowered, because that high of a play rate means that the win rate should be a representative sample of the population.
And that was my takeaway is, oh. Oh, shit. His play rate is super fucking high. And his win rate's high. Graves has been my perma band since I realized that I haven't had to deal with Graves and his OP bullshit.
And I hope he gets nerfed soon because I'd really like to be banning other shit that frustrates me instead. He's not fun, but it was the. I noticed, man, that was like three games in a row of Graves. What is going on? And looked it up.
And that's when I realized, oh, I need to change what I am doing. I don't play this champion. I don't like playing this champion. So it's not someone I want to learn.
So I need to be banning it.
[00:31:09] Speaker C: That's why I'm back to banning Jin when I play Bot Lane, because, yeah, I just don't really like playing against him. He's the 20% pick rate with a 52% win rate. Like, easy to get snowballed against.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: And I. Yeah, to be fair, Jin's win rate has come down. It's only 50 and a half now, but still, it's. You have to value pick rate when you're considering your bands. And I changed, my man. I was banning Akali, who I still think is OP, to be clear, but Akali has a 7% pick rate.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Akali is my permaben, but she's also my counter. I can't face her.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah, she's very frustrating. She's very oppressive. But she's nowhere near the level of popularity of Graves. So I am letting her through now and taking that risk even though she frustrates the shit out of me because Graves is way more popular. Popularity is a core thing you should be looking at when considering bans. If you're playing bot lane, you probably shouldn't be banning Draven. He's not popular even though he's really fucking strong.
Like, yeah, currently, he's currently 10th best bot lane.
But he only has a 5% pick rate.
So you shouldn't be banning him. You should be banning whichever of Caitlyn. Jin Ash Kaisa Jinx. You don't intend to play because they all have 15% pick rates or higher.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: Yeah, there was a period of time a couple years ago and it's kind of funny that's relevant now again, but where I was just banning swain every game because I hated playing against like, swain supports.
And then I realized that like, I must have just like had a bad week of like playing against a couple of them because I looked, he's like, oh, he has like a 1% play rate. I should stop banning this guy.
I just like happen to get unlucky and be in those 1% of games like a couple times in a row. But.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: It happens and you have to actually think critically about that and analyze these things and look up stats to recognize those situations.
Or else you just get stuck in a rut of just banning the champion. That frustrates you. And in 90% of your games, you're banning essentially nothing because the enemy wasn't going to pick them anyway.
Any other thoughts? Do we want to do our other topics or do we want to get to our trinket tipping questions? Because we've been blathering on for a lot longer than I think we originally planned.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: I think we can save those for the next week. We have a drought of topics to discuss.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Cool. You want to give your trinket tip that you experienced free shooter.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: Yeah. So I had the displeasure of playing against a diamond taliyah over the weekend and I learned something about playing against Taliyah. So for those who don't know, the way her Q works is she casts. She throws the five rocks and it makes a circle on the ground. And in that circle, if she casts a cue again, it throws the big rock.
It highlights what circle is going to be consumed for the big rock throw and the opponent can See that?
And they can see that even if you don't have vision of Talia. So if she is sitting in a bush and there's a circle that's highlighted on the ground, Talia is in that bush. And I realized that after I got killed by a taliyah in that bush and thought, oh, I thought that was like a visual bug. No, she was just in that bush. Okay. And I use that to kill her the next time.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: I was gonna say, incidentally, that also means as Talia, do not stand in a bush that you have worked grounded. The enemy will know you're there.
[00:35:05] Speaker C: Yes. If they're paying attention.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Yeah. The moral of the story. Don't work. Ground near bushes.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Sometimes. Sometimes you actually should be.
Alright, let's do some listener questions. Sound good?
Alright. Our first question comes from Fuzzy Panda Punch who writes.
Just wanted to say playing a five stack with people in the discord is the best way to learn codex. Love you. Hope you hear this. Shout out. Can't wait to play again. My question is something that may be addressed quickly, but I wasn't focused on making this aspect of my game better at the time. Warding when vision is needed. Late game and both Dragon and Baron are up. How do I get vision in the jungle if no one roams with me? I'm playing an enchanter support. I've been flamed too many times for it.
So if no one's going with you, the answer is you don't. You don't let the enemy have it. You don't have a choice.
As much as that sucks.
[00:36:08] Speaker C: Yeah. Giving ground is better than face checking and giving your life and not being there for the fight.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: There's a. There's a couple of ways as the enchanter support that you are determined to be warding. If you can just follow the jungler around so that you have someone else to go with and when they leave to go places, you go there and help put down wards. That's option one. Option two, you actually have like a good idea of where people are because of what you said on the mini map. A couple timings. If you know for a fact you're walking into an area that isn't going to be surrounded by enemies, shall we say.
You can take a little bit of a risk. And if you have an ability that gives you either some speed or some tankiness, you go in as far as you dare with the time you have to pop a war down and run away as quick as possible. This is good with someone like Lulu who has her speed up and her shield.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: And typically try and throw an ability into a bush just to, like, at least check if someone's there before you ward it.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Specifically a low cooldown ability that has some sort of feedback that it has hit.
[00:37:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: And like, just having champion has.
[00:37:27] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: And then option three is you ward what you're capable of wording just outside the base. You'd be surprised at how often people sit right around the corner waiting for you. And being able to just get a little bit more vision can save your ass.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: Sometimes it's good.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: All right.
[00:37:49] Speaker C: I was just gonna say sometimes it's more valuable to just pink ward the bush you're standing in to make sure you're not seen there.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Yep. Ward underneath your butt. Don't. Don't hatch enemy wards.
[00:38:00] Speaker C: It's why I buy pink wards on ADC all the time. Those are always going in whatever bush I'm standing in. Or like into the Baron pit.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: Yep. The other thing is just look at the mini map and figure out how many people are visible, who is going to be potentially waiting there, and who is going to be able to collapse before you get away from whoever might potentially be waiting there. Because let's say, for example, you are playing a lulu. You can probably face check and get away with face checking a Sejuani. If she has no allies, yeah, she'll chunk you for half your life. But then you'll polymorph her and walk away. And what's she gonna do about it?
But she has allies. You're dead instantly.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: That's another, like, key thing.
Know who can kill you and who can't in how much time?
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: If you can. Hey, I'm gonna go into the. The other support as I'm running out over here. I know the ad carries on top lane. I know the mid lane is on top lane. They're pushing together.
I can face check this and survive even if I get caught.
That is a hard lesson to learn because a lot of the time you will die first. But, yep, there are just some champions who have ways of getting in and out real quick. If you're on like pike, you can get away with a lot more than most other people.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Yeah, you can. I fucking hate Pike. Pike's another one. I. If his play rate spikes, I immediately ban.
All right. Any other thoughts about warding?
[00:39:42] Speaker A: Oh, it's. It's not just the jungle that you can hijack. If someone else is going out on a mission alone, you can sort of piggyback off of them to get a little bit of vision down even if they're not the tank just to help out. And maybe you two will get out alive together.
If not sacrifice someone.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, I was gonna say sometimes that does result in just giving over two kills instead. So be prepared to throw spells on them and run the fuck away.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Because most of the time no shame. Most of the time a support that's alive can save somebody else than the idiot who died alone. So your your goal should be to survive. Unless you are explicitly going in to sacrifice yourself. And you need to know that before you go in.
[00:40:32] Speaker B: Yep.
Alright, let's get our other set of questions cause Rains wrote in a couple of them.
Dear Wards, hello and welcome to the Rains is Tilted email. I continually decide to pump more hours into this game despite the mixed bag of emotional and LP results. If you have any advice, please send help because uninstalling didn't help.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Play with friends.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Same Same. Yeah, play with friends, join the Discord and come play with people in the Discord.
But also same. I'm addicted.
Please.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Yes, Reigns, we know you're a part of the podcast. You're in the Discord. You're good. We're telling other people.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Yeah, we're telling people to come join the Discord and play with you.
Unfortunately, in Reigns case, I think Reigns is in Oceania, so it kind of introduces a lot of lag to play with people from not that part of the world.
Rains continues. I've recently decided that having fun is more important than obsessing over the micro. Things that will help me improve. I reason that if I am focused on optimizing fun, the mechanics, the fundamentals, the micro will all come with time. Yes, not a bad philosophy. Honestly. It's often true to a degree.
It can also take you in the wrong path, so be mindful. So the questions 1. How do you carry as a tank and can that be done without having to team fight all the time? Sometimes I feel like playing tanks with some good 1v1 power, but I just don't want to have a teamfight because I don't like my teammates.
Sounds like you should play Shen.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: There are a couple of tanks that can just 1v1 almost anybody.
Ornn is probably the most famous assassin tank.
[00:42:17] Speaker C: Malphite.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Yeah, Malphite. But like you're not playing tank Malphite most of the time when you're being a zazz and malphite.
[00:42:23] Speaker C: Listen, you can still 1v1 at 80. Carry on tank.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: But if you're like you're going into it and you don't want to have to team fight.
Probably look, look for someone like Shen because then you have a lot of split push power and you don't have to team fight with your ult, but you can when it becomes necessary.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Yep. And if you ult a teammate and the dumb fuck dies before your ult completes anyway. Oh, well, guess you get to keep pushing.
[00:42:57] Speaker A: Also true.
[00:42:59] Speaker D: I would say, unfortunately, as a tank, you're almost opted into having to team fight because that's the role you decided to be was that tank. Now on the offshoot that you want to maybe go into maybe a split pushing route, I would change into a, like, fighter slash tank and just run demolish and hullbreaker.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: I had another thought just there a second ago, and this is from some pro play things that I don't remember looking at. There are a couple of tanks that don't play like tanks in teamfights. They play like, I'm going to go to the back line and just beat them up.
Mundo is one of the priorities on this one. You can just ignore half the front line, walk into the back and beat up three people.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: Yep. And the key there is Dr. Mundo is a juggernaut.
[00:43:50] Speaker D: He is, I would say he's not a tank. Yeah, but I mean, he is. He's a tank. He takes a lot of damage, but, as in the build lots of armor, build lots of HP and just soak in. Soak all the damage.
That's not where Mundo shines.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: He does build lots of HP, but he does it so that he can have 400, 500 AD when he hits E.
Also, his overlord's blood mail.
[00:44:17] Speaker C: This might be a, like, it's a nuanced thing, but if you're going to be spending a lot of time in the sideline as a tank, Hollow Radiance is a great item for pushing. Like, even if you're not against a lot of, like, big AP threats, you can push so fast with that item. I've played against a Shen where our only AP threat was our support, and they still built hollow ratings just to push faster against us and have a lot more pressure on the sideline.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: It is cartoonish how much better it is than Sunfire Cape for pushing.
[00:44:52] Speaker D: I was just talking to Mike last night about this. Like, when I played a game of Shin and I was like, I love a game where I can build Hallowed Radiance without having to feel guilty about it not giving me anything. Like, if they got any AP on the team, I'm like, oh, hollow Radiance. Because it Is so much better. So much better.
[00:45:12] Speaker B: Yep. As far as the actual how do you carry as a tank? Part of the question. Get CC the most fed person on the enemy team and watch them die.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: Yeah, pretty much.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: Sometimes it doesn't work if the role is split.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: If you're a support tank, your goal is to keep one person alive no matter what. If you are the the top or the jungle one, your goal is to absorb as much damage for other people as possible.
[00:45:39] Speaker C: Or say, see the most fun person. Yeah.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:45:42] Speaker D: When I'm playing a tank, I like to play this game called Protect the President and I find my ADC and I just hug them the entire time and try to keep everybody off of them. If they're okay, let me change from my ADC to my most fed teammate your carry. My carry. I will find them and try to protect them because that's. I feel like my job. And if they have. That's if they have a lot of dive potential on their team. If they don't have a lot of dive potential, that's when you go into their back line and you focus their backline's attention onto you. So your backline can focus their attention on their other. It's. Yeah, sorry.
[00:46:22] Speaker C: That's why I'm a bad tank player because I tend to do that even when my back line's getting dove and I'll turn around and be like, all right, I've distracted four of them for like 20 seconds. They all died to riven.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Whoops.
[00:46:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm. I play tanks like it's aram and you don't really want to do that a lot of the time.
[00:46:42] Speaker B: That. That's why the correct answer is play a moomoo where you build a liandry's because then it's not distracted for them. It's guys, I killed four of them.
[00:46:50] Speaker C: Yep. Also, I will say I do not think it is troll even on tank. Male fight to start a malignance and then build tank.
If you're against, like a particularly squishy team. I don't like full AP malfight, but I think it's still fine to start a malignance.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: I think if they're particularly squishy, just go full AP and it doesn't matter. They're dead before their bodies hit the floor.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: I would have agreed with you except last game.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: That was tragic.
That was tragic.
Mike is referring to a game I played where I had multiple alts that were just flashed out of that was like game winning flashes over and over.
[00:47:38] Speaker C: It's so satisfying to flash Malphite alt. Oh my God. Feels so good.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Yes it is. Also, that was not my last Malphite game. I played a game after that and got unkillable Demon King.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Actually I was referring to the flask I played with Pillow last night where they had an AP Male fight that couldn't do shit.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: Fair enough.
Alright, so Reigns actually wrote a second question. Let's get to that.
How do you identify and optimize off meta or alternative builds for champions? As an example, I want to try Triforce Tank builds for champions like Orn or Nautilus for solo laning and mid and top. But I'm not sure how to optimize playing this style before getting overpowered in each game stage early, mid or late due to not playing the champion in the proper way.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: First things first, because you said the word I need to mention it. Triforce has uses and it doesn't have uses if you do not have somebody who can optimally trigger triforce. Triforce is a worthless item. You need to be able to consistently cast spells every three to four seconds.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: Not just consistently cast spells, but you also need to be someone who can auto attack after each of those and.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Can trigger the auto attack.
So like someone like Ornn. Not necessarily. Great. You blow your load on three spells.
[00:49:04] Speaker D: His cues on a relatively strong auto attack in there.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: Nautilus is true to there.
[00:49:09] Speaker D: Yeah, I'd say Orn. I'd argue he has a pretty relatively short cooldown when it comes to his Q. And with his brittle passive you can get some pretty nasty.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: You can get some pretty nasty ones. But I'll give an alternative thing.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Here's the thing with Ornn he uses Iceborne gauntlet so well because his passive literally multiplies tank stats.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll give you my favorite Triforce Tank that if you want to mess with them, they can trigger it all the time and everyone hates to see it. It's Leona.
She triggers it so often because her cues on like a 6 second cooldown alone and she has a multiplicative armor and Mr. Stat in her kit.
It's so disgusting.
[00:49:57] Speaker B: There you go. Mike is advocating for playing Leona Top with Trinity Force. That's apparently where this podcast has come to.
[00:50:05] Speaker D: So to answer your question, the best way I can I got like a two part answer. So you talk about how to Let me make sure I'm reading it. You want to try it to optimize playing the style. I would recommend make sure that you're proficient in the champion that you're trying it on first before you go into off meta builds and then recognizing like when that build is going to be good. Like so if you're going we'll say. I'll just say Triforce Orn.
Is it going to be more beneficial for you to have more damage or is it going to be more beneficial for you to survive longer?
But I would always recommend just get proficient with that champion that you're trying it on first and then just try it like you then just practice that triforce build.
Take it into a dorm and try it 10 games. Even if you lose 10 games you're still going to be better than the one time the game before that taking knowledge into the next game. It's just. You just have to practice it. You're not going to just try this build where it's. You're going to see the like Free was talking earlier. 99 win rate. We'll say that's into certain matchups like he was saying earlier. So you're not going to get that 99% win rate but you're going to have to practice. You're not just going to be able to pick up this build and be like oh okay cool. I'm good with this champion so I should be able to do this. No. It changes the play like play pattern of that champion.
[00:51:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So the first part of this was identify and optimize. You're looking for things in a kit that scale off of a stat you don't normally see and they scale well. So we're gonna go back many years now to get a perfect example of this. AP Master Yi was a champion.
[00:52:00] Speaker C: Let's go way back.
[00:52:01] Speaker A: Just had random AP ratios because they were there that were really really high. And so you could just build like lich Bane nonstop AP Q crit sit there w ing and take no damage and heal your entire health bar. Run away.
You're looking for things within the kit that have good scaling.
Things within the kit that synergize with other items. Like you're looking for auto attack resets to try and trigger things like Trinity Force.
You're looking for things that make you suspiciously good at something even if you don't have stats. Leona's armor and Mr.
From her W.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: That would be a textbook case of a volibears flicker blade build. That is currently the only build you can play on Volibear.
On the face of it it's like this is a stupid item for a tank. Why would you build an attack speed crit item on a tank but it just has so much incredible synergy with the way his kit is designed.
[00:53:02] Speaker C: I would say similar with works similar with like Echoes of Helia on Senna like all of a sudden like that became one of the best ways because all of a sudden senate like every five seconds is queuing for like 500 health between multiple people.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Black Cleaver, Senna instantly procking it. Pretty much, yep.
[00:53:26] Speaker D: Sorry, I was just going to mention I love looking up and you'll hear the names, I'm sure. Mathematically correct builds builds to watch.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So you're also going to be looking up like you're going to have to do some math and theory crafting and if you don't like doing it, random builds for the sake of random isn't the way to do it. Find someone who's done an odd build on a champion. That seems interesting. First if you don't want to do theory crafting because you need to crunch.
[00:53:59] Speaker C: Some numbers and test it in practice tool as well.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: I. I was going to say the. There's also. You don't have to have the entire build be off meta or alternative. You can adapt single items within your build. I'll use an example I played recently. I played a game of Warwick Normal. Warwick builds right now are Blade of the Ruined King, usually a stride breaker and then like Bruiser tanky atoms like Sterak's or an actual like spirit visage. That kind of stuff.
I was against a Squishy team and by Squishy I mean the only health on their entire team was the support item on the support and a Spear of Shojin on the Embessa.
Oh, and the health on an Edge of Night on a Kha'zix. That was it. They had no health. So I didn't build a Blade of the Ruined King that game because cutting percent health is irrelevant when no one has any percent health to cut.
So how about a Trinity Force instead?
Because Trinity Force gives more attack speed than Blade of the Ruined King. Makes your bites hit like a freight train and gives movement speed. So I could stick to these squishy people that are trying to run away from the big bad wolf.
[00:55:19] Speaker C: I've had a couple worked great.
I adapt like that on Smolder a lot of like. Oh, there are a lot of like short range kind of dive heavy champs. I'm taking grasp this game and building like a lot tankier and just kind of relying on my scaling to get me there. But if you really want to just like build triforce on a tank, play Lucian Top build triforce, then build full tank. They'll never be able to kill you and you'll split, push down and win the game.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: Perfect with that. This has been episode 456 of the Four Words podcast. I've been Jack Soman for free shooter remike of many names for a pillow pet.
Have a great night.
[00:56:00] Speaker C: Bye.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Good night y'all.
[00:56:03] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our
[email protected] the Four Wards Podcast. And of course, send your questions to the Fourwards Podcast at gmail com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the four Wards Podcast at gmail.
[00:56:27] Speaker A: Com.
