The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 467: Mel Atonin'

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, what's up? It's Eric Bra, 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 in league. Hello and welcome to episode 467 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Soman and I've got with me two other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. Free shooters here. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Hello. [00:00:51] Speaker B: And we've got a slightly sick mic of many names. [00:00:54] Speaker C: I made it. [00:00:57] Speaker B: We're happy to have you. We'll try not to stress your voice. No yelling and shouting this episode. Alright guys, we are the Four Wards Podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games. It is a great time. The link is in the episode description. We got all sorts of channels. Come talk about anime, Come talk about other games. Just vent about when you have a bad experience. Ask for advice. All of the above. It's a fun time. We do stream on Twitch. I can be found regularly streaming at Twitch TV. Jacksomen freeshooter can be found at Twitch TV free eShooter. That's right. There are three E's in free. It's been a lot of Elden Ring lately. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I literally stream more this week than I ever have in a single week before. [00:01:45] Speaker B: I believe it. And then Mike can be found@twitch tv. Mikeofmanynames. [00:01:52] Speaker C: I started doing Monster Hunter Rise recently to get ready for Wilds. [00:01:57] Speaker A: I'm looking forward to that. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Fair enough. Does that mean there's gonna be collab streams in the future? [00:02:03] Speaker A: Possibly. [00:02:04] Speaker C: If anyone wants to do some Monster Hunter Rise with me. Yeah, sure. I've barely started, but. [00:02:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I meant. I meant when Wilds comes out. [00:02:12] Speaker C: Also probably true. [00:02:13] Speaker B: I assumed the two of you would play that together. [00:02:16] Speaker C: Probably okay. [00:02:18] Speaker A: Very easy to just drop in with people. Yeah. [00:02:22] Speaker B: All right. In other news, we got a shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet and Robegon for supporting us at the shout out tier. We appreciate you guys. You're keeping the lights on. Now if you want to get a shout out or just support the podcast in general, head over to patreon.com the 4wards podcast. $1 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. And $10 a month will get you that feed and your name and lights at the top of every episode. Last but not least, Listeners, it's disappointed dad Jack's time. Not a single one of you wrote in this past week. Tsk, tsk, tsk. For shame. Write in to theforwards podcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show. We have no questions this week. You guys just get to listen to our topics, and that's gonna be the episode. Because with no Q and A, how do we have a Q and A segment? So Write in theforwards podcastmail.com Ask a shit so we can answer your questions on the show. Okay. [00:03:36] Speaker A: And if you have a dislike of email, you can also drop questions in the discord. We can pull them from there as well. [00:03:42] Speaker B: Yes. Join the Discord. Drop questions in the discord. I prefer email because it's easier to keep track of, but I'll deal with the discord if that means we actually get questions. All right, guys, Mel. Mel is our topic of discussion this week. The new champ. We briefly touched on her a little bit last week. This week we're gonna go more in depth. We're gonna talk about what she does, how to play as her, how to play against her, how to build her, what's she good and bad at, all that fun stuff. But let's start with Mike Free. What were those band rights you guys looked up again? [00:04:22] Speaker A: I was gonna say I could cover what she does real easily. She gets banned. 70% ban rate globally, roughly depending on what side you look at. [00:04:31] Speaker C: 0.5 or something like. So it's almost 70. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:35] Speaker B: She is by far the most banned champion in the game right now. It is not close, which is both a mixture of how powerful she is, but also how powerful she is perceived to be, which we will cover. And it means that you're not likely to get her a lot. So even though we're going to talk about how to play as her, it might change by the time you actually get your hands on her more than once every, like, five games or so, just because she's just so high priority. And if she does get through bands, you need to literally be blue side and first pick her. [00:05:15] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:16] Speaker B: Like, she will get first picked otherwise. [00:05:21] Speaker A: Yeah, we played two games after podcast last week. We were red side. Both games we played against Melbourne. Both games. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Yep. I play a lot of games a league. I have seen one game since she came out where Mel did not go picked or banned. 1. I've played, like, I think 40 games at least since she came out. Yeah, she's banned a lot. So that's the first thing is if you Want to play as Mel, you need to be blue side and you need to first pick her. By the time you hear this, that may or may not change. Is this week. The patch coming out on Wednesday? [00:06:04] Speaker A: I believe, so it should be. [00:06:07] Speaker C: She got a bunch of hotfixes this past week. [00:06:09] Speaker A: We're not talking about a patch right now. So a patch comes out later this week. [00:06:16] Speaker B: Okay. Because I didn't see any hotfixed note hot. [00:06:21] Speaker C: It was notes a little while ago. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, they didn't. And they stopped putting hotfix notes in the patch notes. [00:06:28] Speaker C: So, like, they tone down the passive damage from her alt. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Oh, I, I, I found. [00:06:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:35] Speaker B: So yeah, they, they toned down her passive AP ratio on the first stack. They toned down her Q damage per hit slightly. They toned down her ultimate in multiple different ways. [00:06:48] Speaker C: So yeah, we were talking about those ban rates when we were originally looking at her. Her win rates were all at like 52, 53, 54%. That's not so much the case anymore. When she gets through. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, she's still in like the 50%, which is high for a new champion, but it's. Yep, not as high. So the hotfix worked, but not in perception. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Okay, I know we talked about what her abilities do last week. Let's recap them to kick this off. So I'm gonna go with her simple abilities. First, her Q fires a whole bunch of fireballs at a spot within range. It's a ground targeted aoe, and the. [00:07:30] Speaker A: Range is half of the fucking map. [00:07:32] Speaker B: It's not literally half the map, but it sure feels like that. It's a very long range cast. [00:07:37] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:39] Speaker B: The target range is a thousand, so it's almost as long as an Ezreal Q. Ezra Q, I think is 1200. [00:07:47] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:47] Speaker C: But Ezra Q travels because the circle's over 200. [00:07:52] Speaker B: True. So long range shoots a whole bunch of fireballs. But even at max rank, each individual fireball, which there are 10 of, does 23 plus 8.5% AP damage. If you actually get someone to stand in a full max rank. Mel cue. It's 230 plus 85 AP, which is pretty mid as far as AP ratios go. For a primary damage ability, it's up to 10. [00:08:24] Speaker C: But that's like your, your, this is your first max. [00:08:27] Speaker B: Yes, this is absolutely your first max. Your second max is always going to be your E. The E shoots out an orb in a direction. If it hits someone with the center of the orb, it roots them. If they are in the orb, they take a damage over time effect every tick of this damage over time, which it ticks eight times a second. Applies a stack of her passive which I'll get to next. This is your second max because it increases the root duration. That's really about. Still doesn't do very much damage. Her base damage on this is 220 plus 50% AP. And the. The damage over time tick is literally like 10 and 1% AP. It's. It's negligible. So her passive is I think where a lot of the perception of her being wildly OP comes from. Every spell you hit and every basic attack you hit applies a stack of overwhelm. Overwhelm stores up potential damage on a target. The first stack stores up a whole bunch of potential damage and every subsequent stack stores up a little bit more. If you deal another hit of damage when you have stored up more damage than their remaining health, the target dies. You do have to deal a hit. Only your auto attacks and abilities can trigger this burn. Effects from items cannot. That is important. Alright, let's talk about her other abilities. Her wife reflects projectiles. She does not. She is invulnerable to everything other than turrets for one second and she reflects projectiles back at their source. This means if it's a skill shot, it then redirects back towards them. If it's a point and click, it just flies and hits them. [00:10:45] Speaker C: This is the funniest thing ever when you. When you reflect a V. Geralt. [00:10:49] Speaker B: Yes. The. The damage on this scales up based on rank and based on ap. [00:10:54] Speaker A: And it is also. It's a. The damage it deals is a percentage of the original damage that the ability would have dealt. But what that percentage is scales up. So it starts at 40 scaling to 70 plus some AP. [00:11:11] Speaker C: Yeah. So you. You can eventually deal more damage than the original skill would do to you. [00:11:17] Speaker A: You would need a lot of AP for that. [00:11:19] Speaker C: You need over 600 AP and you need to have a max rank. So you're not doing this until level. [00:11:24] Speaker B: 18 and we'll get to her builds. You're probably never getting that much AP on her. The other part of this that I do want to cover because I learned this yesterday, because it's dealing with projectiles, it basically follows the same rules as Wind Wall. That means that if a projectile is not destroyed by Yasuo's Wind Wall, it does not reflect it back. Syndra's balls, for example, when she shoots the stun at you, still stun you. You just take no damage because you're invulnerable. [00:12:04] Speaker C: Which also means. Orianna ball is gonna smack you. It's not gonna do any damage to you because it's. [00:12:10] Speaker B: It'll stop in place. So you could literally use it to body block Orianna's ball trying to get to her target to. So like there are edge cases where that could be interesting, but you're not going to bounce the ball back at the target. You're not going to shoot a stun back at Syndra. You're not going to shoot Orianna's ball back at her. [00:12:28] Speaker A: The funnier with that is you could stop her e coming back to her so she doesn't get the resistances. [00:12:34] Speaker B: Yup, you could. So that's I think important to note is that any projectile that is not destroyed when wind walled is also not going to interact the way you expect with rebuttal. I have not tested every case. I just noticed this yesterday with the syndrome where I would clearly put up rebuttal, take no damage, but still be stunned. Yeah, I was like, oh, I now can't reflect the old because I didn't reflect the stun. Fuck. [00:13:05] Speaker C: So it. It noticeably says that it functions a lot more like her invulnerability functions like Xin Zhao's invulnerability. You still take the stun if it's something that's going to stop there. [00:13:21] Speaker A: So like, like Zin still gets stunned by Ashel. [00:13:23] Speaker C: No, no, no. If, if the reflect. If the projectile will be reflected, nothing happens. So you're. You're bouncing the thing away if it's something that is not that way. So like now fight ultimate. It's not a projectile. You'll still be even though you're invulnerable. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:13:41] Speaker C: Invulnerable does not. That is correct. Unccable. [00:13:45] Speaker A: Yep. [00:13:45] Speaker B: Yes. You are not unstoppable, merely invulnerable. And that is a one second Kael Ult that also has a projectile reflecting effect instead of its damage aura. [00:13:55] Speaker A: And that's the thing I was going to mention too is it does not like last that long. One second is not that long for a damage invulnerability. Like you mentioned using it on central, you would still take partial damage from syndrome unless you like were frame perfect with it. Obviously you want to take the form. [00:14:17] Speaker B: But also you're gonna chunk the shit out of her. [00:14:20] Speaker A: Yes, but yeah, like one of the key things, especially because it is a long cooldown in her last max when playing against her. One of the key things is looking out like, okay, she has used her w. She now does not have that brief invulnerability window for a long time. At rank one, it is a 35 second cooldown. It's long. Like, that's two full trade rotations for most champions you can get through. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Yep. The cooldown early is really long. It doesn't stay that way partially because the cooldown goes down as you rank it up, but mostly because of how you build. And we'll get to that in a moment. [00:15:02] Speaker C: Yeah. I. I have found this thing is best used while you're being ganked. If you're forced to use it in lane, it really hampers your power. It's really good to Nidalee's coming. Nidalee's pretty popular Bounce a Nidalee spear back. [00:15:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Because she also gets move speed when she casts it. [00:15:22] Speaker B: Yep. It's really good for specifically blocking high threat ult er skillshots. Important to note, there are some very funny interactions with this. If you reflect a nautilus hook or an amumu bandage toss, you will pull yourself to them. You will literally blitz hook yourself. [00:15:42] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing. [00:15:43] Speaker B: It's so funny. If you reflect a blitz hook, you'll then shoot a hook out and hook them to you. So there are some very funny interactions. I have definitely killed myself with this because I reflected a Moo Moo bandage toss and accidentally entered into the enemy team. [00:16:01] Speaker A: Yeah, she's not a champ. You want to be in the middle of the enemy team. [00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it was very funny, but I was very dead. [00:16:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:12] Speaker B: I want to cover what her ultimate does because it is deceptively powerful. When we get to talking about her build, Mel's ultimate, she has to have overwhelm stacks on someone just by skilling up her ultimate, your Overwhelm is stronger. And then the Active, you cast it. And any targets that are affected by Overwhelm take damage based on how many Overwhelm stacks they have on them. Now, the damage inherently does not sound very impressive. At Max Rank, this is 200 damage with a 30% AP ratio and an extra 10 damage with a 2.5% AP ratio per overwhelm stack on the target. Here's where it gets crazy. The range on this is global. They cannot dash out of your range to prevent you from ulting them to death. And she applies a lot of stacks very quickly. Her Q at Max rank can apply up to 10 stacks of overwhelm. Her E if she hits the root, applies like 1113 stacks depending on the exact movement vectors involved. When it hits, she will easily in a single rotation get to almost 30 stacks. And if she gets to have two or three rotations in a fight, that number can skyrocket. If she gets to 40 stacks, that base damage is now 600. And the AP ratio is now 130% AP at 40 stacks. I've already gotten Ults off with her that were well north of 60 stacks on a target. This ability can hurt if she can get enough stacks on a target first. [00:18:23] Speaker A: And it's important to note two things with it. So she has to have stacks on the target. Stacks take 5 seconds to fall off, which is definitely long enough for her to like walk out of combat and still be able to cast it. Also, this ability casts quick. It's not like a carthasault where you see coming for three seconds. It's less than a second of channel time. Like it could be honestly hard to notice it go off sometimes if you don't have a lot of stacks on you. [00:18:52] Speaker B: And if it will be lethal, it gives melon visual indicator. [00:18:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:19:01] Speaker B: Well, I should say if it would be lethal as of when the the indicator is showing they can still receive a shield during the cast time and it won't kill. [00:19:10] Speaker A: I think the indicator might just be for her next like hit triggers her passive execute. I don't know if it's specifically her ult. [00:19:19] Speaker B: No, there's a special one for her alt. [00:19:21] Speaker A: There is. Okay, gotcha. [00:19:22] Speaker B: There's a special indicator for her ult. If her ULT will deal enough damage to put someone in the current state they are in to die from casting the alt, it has an indicator. [00:19:34] Speaker A: Good to know. [00:19:35] Speaker C: Now, we've neglected to mention something here which is her passive. The stacks and. And the amount of essentially less health that you have is based on your Mr. So the tankier you are, the less damage you will take. [00:19:51] Speaker B: All magic damage. [00:19:52] Speaker C: Which means you can get things that will boost your resistances at the moment, a taric thing that will save your life. It isn't just a shield that can do this. [00:20:05] Speaker B: There aren't very many sources of being able to be granted Mr. On command. But the sources that exist. Yes. Can make a difference. If you're Hecarim and she's about to Ult you during that 75 second cast time, if you can get your W off, you might live. That kind of stuff. [00:20:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:24] Speaker B: Damage reduction effects like Alice, turtles, W. Yeah, that kind of stuff will. Will reduce it. Okay, so we've talked about what her abilities are. Let's talk about playing as her. And I want to start with how to build Mel free You hit on an important point. Her stacks last five seconds. That means the correct way to build Mel is to build a shitload of ability haste so you can keep the stacks going for as long as someone's in combat. I have seen the most success with her rushing blackfire torch. Because her you cost a shitload of mana. You do need mana Black fire torch, specifically because sustained damage. So the burn just ticking. It will continuously deal damage. And it's much higher ability haste than the alternatives that make sense. On her, you can also go seraphs. Seraphs is totally valid. I have gone both on some games. I also think cosmic drive is incredibly high value on her. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah, cosmic's a good, like, third item. [00:21:40] Speaker C: I think my favorite third item for her is horizon focus. It's a good amount of abilities. It's a good amount of ap. It's a damage amp that isn't just for you. [00:21:57] Speaker B: It is just for you. That's how horizon focus works. The key is horizon focus's damage amp will apply to Overwhelm. So will shadow flames. [00:22:07] Speaker C: Yes. [00:22:07] Speaker B: Because it is magic damage. So those items are really good on her. Just in general. The other thing with Mel that I've noticed that is really distinct, I don't really care about getting flat pen on her because you're either, like, you're stacking up until you can ult someone to death, basically. Flat pen will lower the threshold it takes to reach that kill point. But ability haste will let you just spam and get there easier. Raw AP not that useful on her. Her AP ratios kind of suck outside of her ult. [00:22:50] Speaker A: So the other thing we haven't mentioned, which is good into, like, tankier teams, is, like we said, blackfire. But you want to go this first, you'd probably go second. Liandry's is really good because it is so easy for Mel to apply just like, a tick or two with either her Q or her E. That's one of the most frustrating parts playing against you is it's like the mosquito of just like, even if you're not taking the full duration, you're just getting, like, pinged by one or two of the missiles or you're getting pinged by her E as it goes by. Like. And if she actually builds both of those items, you're then burning for a good chunk of damage after. She can apply those so easily. [00:23:32] Speaker C: Yeah, so. [00:23:32] Speaker B: So applies them so easily to entire teams. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Yep. [00:23:37] Speaker C: You mentioned, like, you're not caring about the penetration. That's why she's one of the people who, if she Gets the pen item. She goes Crip Bloom. [00:23:46] Speaker B: No, the new one. Blood Letters Curse. Oh, she does her blood and her Q. Both her E and her Q will instantly full stack it. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Yep. [00:23:57] Speaker B: And it gives her health. She doesn't care about it. [00:23:59] Speaker C: No, you're 100% right. I completely forgot about Bloodletter's Curse. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Bloodletter's Curse is godly on her. It is the only pen item you should be building on her because of the way she works. You really won't notice or care about the difference between 30% and 40%, but you will care about the extra ability, haste and health more than you'll care about the extra 10% on void staff. [00:24:24] Speaker C: I've gotta remember that that matters. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Blood Letters for her. [00:24:28] Speaker A: I was gonna say. I feel like most people are forgetting it exists. I'm looking at like the build numbers on it and it just never gets built. [00:24:35] Speaker B: The only reason to build Crypt Bloom instead, and it would be Crypt Bloom would be your pivot would be if you have like a brand or a mordekaiser who's already built Bloodletters Curse. [00:24:46] Speaker C: There is, There is a reason. Yeah. [00:24:49] Speaker B: That's the only time you should be building that instead of Blood Letters Curse. And even then, maybe you should be building the Blood Letters curse that they should be building via Crypt Bloomer Void Staff. But you can't control what your teammates build, so you can control yourself. [00:25:05] Speaker C: So I, I, I don't know if all of us are in agreement on this one. She is not a Rabadon's builder. [00:25:10] Speaker B: No, never. I don't even go like my full build. I have like 400 AP. Like, she's not a high AP champ. [00:25:20] Speaker C: She's one of the people who's very good with Morellonomicon because she's very good at applying it and keeping it on them. And Morellos also gives you that all important ability, Haste. She's also going to be deceptively tanky because almost every item that gives a lot of haste also has health on it. The Bloodletters Curse. You're going to see things like the Seraph's shield, cosmic drive, etc. Things if you want to. I wouldn't normally consider Riftmaker, but it's another thing with a good amount of ability, haste, it's a good damage amp going on. It's a good amount of health. [00:26:01] Speaker B: Riftmaker has the problem of basically all of her damage is AoE, so you really don't get much vamp from it. And she's ranged. But the damage amp the percent Damage amp is really nice when it comes to actually being able to land your. Your Ult kills because it'll boost the overwhelm damage. That's why I think Liandry's is so core on her too. Is Liandry's has a percent damage amp on it separate from the burn. [00:26:29] Speaker C: Liandry's is the one item that does not have haste that you probably want. [00:26:34] Speaker A: Yep. [00:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah. You pretty much always want a Leandre's despite it not having haste. [00:26:41] Speaker C: Which means I think you. You start either Blackfire or Seraphs and then immediately go into Liandries and then probably the other dot item. [00:26:51] Speaker A: Depends. You could go cosmic in that spot. Third kind of depends how tanky they are at that point. And then in the. [00:26:58] Speaker B: It depends on how much you need movement, speed and health versus either seraph shield or a second burn, depending on which one you picked in first item. [00:27:08] Speaker A: True. [00:27:10] Speaker B: That's really what it comes down to. Me, if you're worried about, oh, they have an assassin and he's going to pop me in one big hit. Get both Saris and Blackfire Torch. So you get that big ass shield. If you're worried about, oh, they have a fighter who's going to try to run me down. Get Cosmic Drive so you can kite back. [00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And then in place of getting the rabbit on spot, that's where you would probably get your Shadow Flame because you're gonna get more value out of it. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Yep. Shadowflame is literally just better for her than Death Cap is, which is weird, but there's a few champions like that. [00:27:47] Speaker C: Shadowflame is there. Horizon Focus is there. Do you think she's a malignant builder? [00:27:53] Speaker B: No. [00:27:54] Speaker A: No. [00:27:55] Speaker B: Pretty much never. [00:27:56] Speaker C: The Ult isn't really worth it. [00:27:59] Speaker B: Here's. Here's why. Malignance builders fall into one of two categories. Champions who have Long Cooldown ultimates or champions who regularly apply their ultimates through the course of existing. [00:28:13] Speaker A: Yep. [00:28:13] Speaker B: So champions like Karthus Long Cooldown wants malignance. Champions like Teemo Spams, Shrooms and malignants will proc every time someone hits a shroom. [00:28:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:25] Speaker B: So you're the ones who want malignants. [00:28:27] Speaker C: So I. I said that because it is a finisher. You look at this to try and go. You're either building malignants for the ability haste or for the hate Fog. [00:28:36] Speaker B: Yep. She's. She's more as far as like, would she consider malignance? She's more in the category of like Syndra or Vhagar in that the ult is A finisher, you've already dealt all your other damage and then you blow them up with the ult to finish the fight. Malignance is not adding value there. It's also just not that long of a cooldown, so you really don't need the ultimate haste. Like, her old cooldown drops down to 80 seconds at max rank, and it's 120 seconds at first rank. And you're building a lot of regular ability haste. You don't need the old haste. [00:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you'll have like, at that rate, you'll have basically every fight once you're. Once it's ranked too. [00:29:15] Speaker B: Yep. Okay, so how do you actually pilot Mel? What is her actual, like, rotation, play pattern kind of stuff? [00:29:27] Speaker A: Stand as far away as possible and hit them with max range Qs mostly. [00:29:36] Speaker B: If there's someone who doesn't have an ability to just hard gap close on you, stepping up a little bit. So you can look for picks with your E and the proc'd version of your auto, because every time you cast a spell, you also get stacks that make your next auto attack multi hit. The multi hit is the part that matters there because it's a whole bunch of extra overwhelm stacks. And again, you build a lot of ability haste. So you quickly will reach a point where you have nine stacks and then you auto someone and you apply nine hits and just stack a whole extra spell worth of overwhelm on someone. So like against a Galio, for example, if you've avoided his justice punch, then just walk at him and throw your E at him. Or if he justice punches at you, just throw the E and walk away. As you're doing it, you want to land the E because it does a lot of dot and a lot of ticks of overwhelm. And then you Q them afterwards and they're rooted and they can't dodge the Q so you get all the fireball hits. It's brutal. And you can reach a point of ability haste where you can spam both of these abilities like every three to four seconds. [00:30:42] Speaker C: Yeah, her max rank with her q with those three items we were talking about. Cyrus Blackfire Landry's is 3.6 seconds. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Yep. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah, she can spam it. [00:30:57] Speaker B: And that's without other sources of ability haste. [00:30:59] Speaker C: That's just with those three items. And like lucidity boots. Because you're probably not building sorc shoes. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Yes. That is the other thing. Build lucidity boots. Seriously. Or a defensive boot. Defensive boots are fine. [00:31:11] Speaker C: Defensive boots are most likely like you're gonna do probably defensives or lucidities if you're facing another mage. Probably lucidities if you're facing an assassin. Go a defensive boot. [00:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. Defensive boots are totally fine, but you just don't get much out of the Sark boots because again, it's just about repeated hits. It's about letting the. The dots you build from items tick. It's about hitting them over and over until you have enough overwhelm damage to just go pop. [00:31:41] Speaker A: I think if anything, get Swifties because I think Swifties are still really fucking strong right now. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Swifties are also really good, especially if you get the feats of strength. The upgraded Swifties are nuts. [00:31:56] Speaker A: Yes. I think SORCs are still better than lucidity because I think lucidity boots are kind of just bad right now. Like it's only 10 haste and like, yeah, it's the summer Haste as well. But if you're not getting the like. [00:32:12] Speaker B: Feet bonus on top, they're also much cheaper. [00:32:16] Speaker A: They're only 200 gold cheaper and only 100 gold cheaper than Swifties. [00:32:21] Speaker B: That's fair. [00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah, they're still the cheapest boot, but it's not by as much. Also, we didn't mention this because I think we overlook it a lot. Take the Ability Haste Stat chart most yes Champs. You're taking the like adaptive force in a mid lane. You want to take the Ability Haste one on her. [00:32:42] Speaker B: I. I take the Ability Haste one on basically every mage. [00:32:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:48] Speaker B: That first bit of Ability Haste feels so good. And if I'm playing someone who's an Ability Haste stacker like her, you want as much as you can get. And if I'm playing someone who isn't and I'm building like Luden's Shadow Flame Death Cap kind of build, then that little bit of Ability Haste goes a long way. Because I don't have any other ability. [00:33:06] Speaker A: The stat shard almost gives as much haste as Ludens does. [00:33:10] Speaker B: Yep, exactly. I think the Ability Haste Stat Shard is wildly undervalued by the community as a whole. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Agreed. But yeah, her. So with her passive part of the. With the passive auto. I should say part of the reason for it is. That's right. Trying to encourage her, not just sitting back at max range, spamming cues of like actually having to walk in and engage. It's like Zerith's passive of having to auto to get mana. Her attack range is still long enough that like she has 550 attack range. It's not nothing. Um, yep, it's Part of why I think she's kind of viable bot lane too as like bot lane apc. So it's still not entirely like her having to get unsafe. It's just she doesn't have to play it literally max range. [00:34:00] Speaker B: But here's the other reason she's viable bot lane because of the way her passive works. She last hits like an actual marksman and not like a mage. Yes, you can actually last hit reliably with your auto attacks and shove the wave or control the wave with your auto attacks in a way that other mages struggle with. So you can spend more of your spells on trying to hit your opponents and less of your spells on the minions. Whereas most mages, at least early, are having to spam spells on the wave to contain the wave while the opposing ad carry just shoves because they're an ad carry and they right click minions. [00:34:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's some of the real power of 550 range with a thousand range poke that is not blocked by minions of you can be standing in farm range and poking them off behind their minion wave. [00:34:48] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:49] Speaker A: So annoying. [00:34:53] Speaker C: I have found out that the practice tool does not properly spawn dragons the ones you want them to. [00:35:00] Speaker A: Nice. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:35:01] Speaker C: I was trying to see what you could do with ability haste by stacking hextech dragons and it refused to spawn the dragons I told it to. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Interesting. I have a little bit of trivia I've gotten off the wiki that I think is amusing. Go for it. Mel's W does not reflect Sylas's Ult. It just destroys it. Because of course, what would it do if it reflected it? She can't steal Sylas's Ult. That doesn't make sense. [00:35:35] Speaker A: I guess that makes sense. Like the stealing part of his. All right. [00:35:39] Speaker B: It just destroys it. There's no. There's no replication effect at all. [00:35:43] Speaker A: Neat. [00:35:44] Speaker B: It's just funny. It's neat. And then visually, her W is very similar to the Zelda reflect ability in Super Smash Brothers. [00:35:56] Speaker C: Identical. [00:35:56] Speaker B: Like it's extremely similar. This was apparently not on purpose. It just happened to be. They designed a reflectability for their mage and it looks like the reflectability in Smash Brothers that Zelda uses, but they said it's completely unintentional. I don't know if I believe them, but it's funny either way. All right. That's playing Azmill. How do you actually play against this champion? [00:36:31] Speaker A: Your banner? [00:36:33] Speaker C: No, actually, yes. I. I think she's got quite a few weaknesses. She is outranged by quite a few other Poke mages? [00:36:42] Speaker B: Yep. Specifically by several other poke mages with non reflectable poke like Xerath. [00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:48] Speaker C: Zerith is a big one. Vel'koz is pretty good into her because she's only got. She has to choose one of your very many projectiles. If you have a lot of projectiles to reflect, it's actually fairly strong into her because she has to choose which one. And his ult is not a projectile. [00:37:09] Speaker B: Yep. How does it work with reflecting Vel'koz's Q? Does it try to geometry at them or does it just shoot it straight at Vel'koz? [00:37:19] Speaker C: I have no idea. I've never seen it happen because I've never seen anyone play Velcas and Demel. [00:37:24] Speaker A: I would assume it would shoot it straight at them. [00:37:28] Speaker B: In which case it's probably not going to hit Vel'koz because there's probably minions in the way. So that makes Vel'koz even a better choice. Into her. [00:37:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Another. Another very strong thing into her are assassins are pretty good into her. You can get on top of her very easily. Especially if you can get on the timing of her E. Her E's are only real like this. This is the ability you need to worry about in lane. And a lot of assassins actually have a good bit of poke. [00:37:59] Speaker B: Yep. I was gonna say like they have a lot of poke. In the case of assassins like Zed for example, like oh no, she reflected a shuriken. I'll do it again in four seconds. [00:38:09] Speaker A: I was actually just thinking with Zed, she probably you want to save your W for his old popping, not for the application. Because you don't stop the application of it. [00:38:20] Speaker C: You do not stop the application, but. [00:38:22] Speaker B: You can just straight up immune the actual damage dealt. As long as you time it correctly. [00:38:27] Speaker A: Yep. [00:38:29] Speaker B: In general, yeah, I agree. Assassins, melee champions in general, where you're not projectile based. She has a much harder time with anyone who can gap close on her. High mobility does pretty well into her because he can just wind wall her root and then just keep going at her. And what's she gonna do about it? He can do the Q3, the knock up his only projectile. He can dash at her and turn it into not a projectile and just be like fuck you, Mel. I've played yone into her. Your Q3 on yone, if you are in melee range of her is not yet a projectile. It knocks her up and does not reflect. If you're past the dash range, then it becomes a projectile and she can reflect it and knock you up. So interesting interactions there, I think actually. And this is maybe a hot take. I don't know. I think her hardest counter is Fizz because she does her damage in a lot of repeated hits. And Fizz passive reduces damage taken per hit. Kind of in the same way that Amumu counters Ash really hard. [00:39:41] Speaker A: I always has a passive. [00:39:44] Speaker C: It means essentially Mel is immune to the fizzled. But everything else about Fizz is meant to get on top of Mel. [00:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:52] Speaker B: Yep. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Because a Mel, you never press W. [00:39:55] Speaker B: Her to kill her. [00:39:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:57] Speaker B: And the moment she uses her W to block any damage source, then he can ult her. [00:40:03] Speaker C: Now if you're a good male, you, you 100 save your E for his dash and then you just get to cue him and walk away. [00:40:15] Speaker B: So I looked, I looked up currently, according to Op gg, the matchups that she struggles with the most. Do you have any guesses? So I mentioned Fizz. Fizz is up there. I'm wondering if you guys can guess any of the others. [00:40:28] Speaker C: I was looking on cheating. [00:40:31] Speaker B: Garen is her straight up worst matchup. [00:40:37] Speaker C: I figured because Garen is still considered a mid laner and he sort of dumpsters on on ranged like high range champions like that. [00:40:46] Speaker B: He just presses W and she tries to root him, walks through it like it's nothing and just beats the shit out of her. [00:40:55] Speaker A: Yeah. The ones I'm seeing make sense. Like I see Taliyah Cho'gath and Aurelion Sol all pretty high. [00:41:03] Speaker B: Yep. Which Taliyah is kind of the same problem of like you can reflect her Q. But that's not the scary part. The scary part is if she flicks you. [00:41:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:12] Speaker B: That's not a projectile. [00:41:13] Speaker C: So literally it's everything I've seen has no projectiles. Everything that I've seen here looks like it's everything. We've said long range people, Xerath, Vel'koz, Anivia, and then there's the weird ones with Aurelion Sol, Kael Galio makes perfect sense. Malzahar makes perfect sense. [00:41:34] Speaker A: Shockingly, Vhagar. [00:41:36] Speaker B: I'm seeing Vhagar is in there. And I think that's the case of she can't reflect his W. And as long as he just holds the ult, she eventually dies or has to reflect something and then he ults her. [00:41:49] Speaker A: True. [00:41:52] Speaker B: Because she just does not have the tools to deal with Vhagar. She also doesn't have the tools to deal with Vhagar. He gets to free stack. [00:41:58] Speaker C: Yeah. That's probably the most dangerous. [00:42:00] Speaker B: Which brings Me to one of the things I want to talk about playing against Mel. The number one thing you can do. Never stop moving. Her Q does fucking jack shit for damage. If it only hits two, three shots before you're out of it because you're moving. [00:42:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially before she has her first item. [00:42:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it tickles like level one and level two for that matter, because it's still first rank. Her Q does 13 damage per shot. If you walk and you get hit twice, oh, no, you took 26 damage. Your Doran's shield will literally outheal that. That's not hyperbole. That's how weak it is. So, yeah, don't. Don't stand still. Champions who have to stand still are the worst ones you can play against her, honestly. [00:43:00] Speaker A: Except Asel, actually. [00:43:02] Speaker C: Another. Another problem playing against her. If you have long patterns, more than five seconds, when her stacks go off, every reapplication of her stacks is a huge burst of damage. So if she's doing incremental stacks consistently, yeah, she's taking you down a lot. But every first application, first time you're head with Q, first auto attack, that's a huge burst. Because of that initial passive bonus. [00:43:34] Speaker B: It'S only realized massive. She kills you. So it's not a big deal. [00:43:37] Speaker C: Overall, it's not a massive chunk, but it's one of those things where it's like fighting mf, where every time she does a switch target, she's suddenly doing a heavy burst of damage. If you wait that five seconds, you're taking an extra burst of damage. [00:43:52] Speaker B: We didn't talk about runes on her. Scorch. Take Scorch quite literally. You will double your level one damage by taking Scorch. If you hit a Q on someone. [00:44:07] Speaker A: I mean, I think her rune, she's one of those champions that, like, her runes are kind of set in stone, at least for her primary tree of like, you go comet, manaflow, transcendent, Scorch. Those are the best options in all four of those rows for you. [00:44:22] Speaker B: Yep. And it's not close. And they're better than basically any other rune you can choose. [00:44:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And then like, secondary, you're taking coup de grace because of the ultimate and passive synergy. So then it's just, do you want the haste or do you want presence of mind? [00:44:36] Speaker B: Yep. And both are valid. There isn't a wrong choice there. [00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, her runes are damn near set in stone. [00:44:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It sucks because I'd love to take free ass boots, but. Nah, you need coup de grace. [00:44:51] Speaker A: And you Know, I could see the argument for like potentially going for a strike on her if it wasn't for the fact that the other three minor runes in blue were so good for her. [00:45:06] Speaker B: That. But also like, because you could make an argument, oh, well, take first strike and then grab like manaflow and Scorch and you could, but she doesn't do any actual upfront damage for the first strike, so you're not getting very much gold each proc. Like, cool. I got 11 gold. I got 11 gold again. It's really underwhelming. [00:45:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:30] Speaker C: I think the. The main thing would be the only time you would consider something else is if you'd actually like really want to have Phase Rush because she can proc a phase Rush pretty quick and then get the out of there. [00:45:45] Speaker B: I could see that against some of the more gap closey type champions. Like that's probably the only way to have a chance of surviving against Garen, for example. So if you're playing Mel and you're in a counter matchup where you're fucked, then maybe a Phase Rush instead of Comet. Okay. Overall strengths and weaknesses. [00:46:07] Speaker C: Actually, I have another thought to bring past you. [00:46:09] Speaker B: Okay. [00:46:09] Speaker C: What do you think about putting realized crystal scepter on her? [00:46:14] Speaker B: I think it's good. I think it has the problem of not having ability haste. So it's competing for your early slots of getting enough haste. But if you don't need to be the primary carry for your team, you've got your. Your Liandry's Blackfire and either cosmic or Seraphs kind of situation, and you're like, what do I get for fourth item? Ryla's is fine. The problem it has is her E already has a slow and a root tied to it. So it's really just for fishing for Q's. Is the main reason to. [00:46:48] Speaker A: Yep. [00:46:48] Speaker B: To do it. [00:46:49] Speaker C: The only other reason I could think to do it is because she might be one of the best people to deal with a split engagement where she can throw cues in one direction, ease in the other, and start CCing in double directions. Because she get as many stacks as possible on as many people as possible, then she can have an alt on a lot of things. [00:47:11] Speaker B: No, because her alt damage is based on the number of stacks on each individual target. It is not. [00:47:17] Speaker C: Yes, it's not. It's not a cumulative stack. [00:47:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:47:23] Speaker C: It is a cube stack of everything. Yeah. [00:47:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:26] Speaker B: You can't hit one person 150 times and then hit someone else once and ult them and blow them up. [00:47:30] Speaker C: It is not Splash that was not very based on one target. It is cumulative per target. But you can get cumulative targets pretty easily. You if you're building by the end of the game, you have enough haste that your E is on a 5 second cooldown almost your. [00:47:47] Speaker B: Your best friend is going to be champions that clump up your enemies like Rell like yone those kinds of champions so that you can then land a two to three man root land the Q afterwards and then ult for 30 plus stacks on three people. [00:48:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the other key of why Rylai's probably isn't great is it's the same slow percentage as her E already is. Which is the best ability to apply it because it's so wide. [00:48:17] Speaker B: Yep. [00:48:18] Speaker C: Yeah. Despite how narrow the route is. The slow is very wide. [00:48:23] Speaker B: Yeah. It's why I don't. I don't hate it but I I haven't built it times. I've played her and I have played her several times same. Let's see. I've played her four times in solo queue with a 75% win rate. So I've gotten her a handful of times because that was. That was once I was comfortable taking her into ranked. [00:48:45] Speaker A: And I think the other thing before we move on to just overall strengths and weaknesses and this kind of transitions don't fire support. She's not a great support. [00:48:57] Speaker B: You need out on so much value from her ability to just last hit. [00:49:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:02] Speaker C: Did you lose a she? The value of getting multiple sets of items she. She's not good with one ability heist item as a support. You're not getting a lot. [00:49:13] Speaker A: And her only defensive tool is on such a long cooldown that like later in the game you're going to be so unsafe warding that it'll be so easy for people to jump on you and blow you up. [00:49:23] Speaker C: The reason certain mages are good as supports are they either have huge bursts or huge utility or huge CC or. [00:49:34] Speaker B: Or two of the three. [00:49:35] Speaker C: Or two of the three. Realistically, almost none of them have just one. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Like she has good cc. Her E is a good duration route and that is what you would max if you were playing her support. [00:49:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:49] Speaker B: But just play Luxor Morgana. They're literally better at that type of support. [00:49:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:54] Speaker C: And like Zyra, if you want to do this Zyra is a better version of her. [00:50:00] Speaker A: And with like Zyra and Lux you can like put plants or Lux E into a bush before you walk into it toward it like it mitigate it gives you a little bit more safety. [00:50:10] Speaker B: With Squishy Mel can do that with her cue. It does reveal. [00:50:14] Speaker C: Yes, true. [00:50:15] Speaker A: But it only reveals in, like the small area around it. [00:50:18] Speaker B: So, like, that's not meaningfully different than the others, honestly. [00:50:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fair. [00:50:24] Speaker C: But like, it. She. She's not a burst mage. She's. She's not designed as a burst mage, which means kind of. [00:50:31] Speaker B: Kind of ties into where I wanted to start with her overall strengths and weaknesses. Mel does not do very much damage. It's deceptive because her fucking ult popping, her passive is like the. The highlight reel move and it does do a lot of damage. But her actual base kit, her damage sucks. Like, straight up, it sucks. Her Q is weak by mage, like bread and butter standards. Her E is weak by mage second max standards. She does less damage than basically any other mage. A ton of her powers just in her ult and her passive, actually a. [00:51:09] Speaker C: Lot of her power budget is in her W. The ability to reflect things, which I. I understand. If people see an ash on bot and they're like, this sounds like a great idea for Mel. It's not. You're better off just playing Braum. [00:51:28] Speaker B: Yep. First of all, play Mel AP carry and then have a Braum support and you have the best of both worlds. [00:51:34] Speaker A: Yes. [00:51:34] Speaker C: If you were allowed to play her AD carry as the carry position. Not ad carry. Don't. Don't build AD on her AP carry. [00:51:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:44] Speaker C: AP carry, then she's fine. Yeah. Put. Put a senna with her. It's a good lane. It's a lot of range, a lot of poke. But don't. Don't put her as a support. [00:52:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think in terms of low damage, that's why she's one of those that, like, this is why I think Blackfy and Liandries are so good on her. Of. And she's good into tanky teams because she wants an extended fight. [00:52:12] Speaker B: Like. Yes. [00:52:13] Speaker A: She thrives in fights that go on forever because with the range that her Q and E give her, she can sit behind her team, like with the ad carry and you know, in a front to back, she can just be backline, just like being annoying, stacking up, applying those Leandros and Blackfire and then all of a sudden just burst you towards the end. [00:52:35] Speaker B: Yep. You got to think of her more like a brand in terms of how she deals damage. [00:52:43] Speaker C: Less burst. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah. But Bran can still 100 to 0 you in three seconds. [00:52:48] Speaker C: She really can't. [00:52:51] Speaker A: You don't play any carry. [00:52:52] Speaker B: He can't. [00:52:53] Speaker C: I honestly think the biggest strength of. [00:52:55] Speaker A: Her oh, she is. [00:52:56] Speaker C: How easy it is to pick her up. If you know how to play any other artillery mage, you know how to play her. [00:53:06] Speaker A: Yeah, and we've said it multiple times. She is the easiest champion to farm with in the game. Like for laning phase. And it's not really close. [00:53:17] Speaker B: You can last hit from like 80 something health. [00:53:21] Speaker C: At level one it was a hundred because she had 50 base AD plus almost 50 for the passive. [00:53:29] Speaker B: The passive is reduced against minions, isn't it? [00:53:34] Speaker C: I thought just the Q was, but I don't remember anymore. [00:53:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah, reduced to 60% against minions. [00:53:40] Speaker C: Okay, so yeah, like 80%. [00:53:42] Speaker B: Yeah, 80, 80. She can last hit from 80 at level one with her auto attacks. [00:53:47] Speaker C: The real key is normally when you get a ranged minion under the tower, it takes two auto attacks for a ranged character to kill it. It does not. If the tower has hit it, she can get it in one always. [00:54:02] Speaker B: Yep. Why she's. She's less bothered by being pushed under turret than basically any other mage is. All right, so we've talked a little bit about her overall strengths and weaknesses. Do we actually think she's a good champion or do we think it's just perception because of the way her passive works that people think she's overtuned? [00:54:28] Speaker C: I think she is good. I don't actually think she's over tuned. [00:54:32] Speaker A: I think she's an unhealthy champion. [00:54:36] Speaker B: Explain. [00:54:39] Speaker A: It's not for the farming. I think that's fine. Like having a mage that's a good farmer is a good thing to have in the game. [00:54:47] Speaker B: There are others that do it in different ways. So like it's not even like that's a unique niche for her. [00:54:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I just think the like I don't know the whole like being able to just play at the, at your max range, set under tower the entire game like non interactive gameplay and still be able to affect the game that much is a little problematic. [00:55:11] Speaker C: She's even weaker at that other artillery mages, I think she's just fundamentally weaker than them at that. [00:55:18] Speaker B: So what you're telling me is that Zerath is OP and needs to be nerfed? [00:55:25] Speaker A: No, because I'd be on board for that. [00:55:27] Speaker B: If you agree. [00:55:28] Speaker A: If you say that I think Xerath is stronger than his play rate reflects. But I also think the combination of her having this really strong defensive tool on top of it where Xerath has the single target target stun, that's a skill shot. Plus like his alt beat, like his old being Skill shots as well. Whereas hers is just the extra burst on the end. [00:55:54] Speaker C: I think you are having the same problem that 50% of people are having, which is you have not been in the games where she has been utterly destroyed. [00:56:06] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. And like I've. Again, I've only played against her twice. One of those games we won and she didn't do much. It was still not fun to play against. [00:56:15] Speaker B: Like that I agree with. And that's why I compare her to Xerath. When she does well, she feels highly uninteractive. [00:56:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:27] Speaker B: When she's behind and does poorly, she's a mage from behind. They suck. That's. Yeah, she's not different in that regard. So you, you see the, the, the high points where it's like what am I supposed to do? I literally have no counterplay. And the low points don't stand out because it's not like oh wow, she's fucking awful from behind. It's. No, she's the regular amount bad from behind like every other mage. I did want to point out she is possibly the worst objective taking champion in the game because her damage is so bad. Like her actual raw damage. She does jack shit to Dragon and Baron and Attacon. Like she just doesn't do anything to them. [00:57:12] Speaker A: Unless she has Liandry's Blackfyre. [00:57:15] Speaker B: Yeah. But then it's the Liandra's Blackfire doing the damage, not her actual spells. [00:57:20] Speaker C: Actually I think she's amazing at them for one reason. She still has the health cut on them, which means if she's doing damage. [00:57:30] Speaker B: It stacks up so slow. [00:57:32] Speaker C: You're still stacking pretty slow, but you will actually end up having higher than smite by the end of it. [00:57:39] Speaker B: Okay. At max rank when you are level 16 plus you are gonna have 80 plus 5 per stack damage for your execute. You need hundreds of stacks, which is like 30 seconds of sitting there hitting it before you can beat a smite. [00:58:01] Speaker C: That's an Oticon. [00:58:05] Speaker B: That is. [00:58:05] Speaker A: Yeah, but you're not gonna be max. [00:58:06] Speaker B: Level rotations of your spells. [00:58:08] Speaker C: That's. [00:58:09] Speaker B: Yeah, is that. Here's my counterpoint that is only relevant for Baron. I have never seen her stacks on an objective get to even half a smite. [00:58:21] Speaker A: Here's my counterpoint to that. Not to the smite point, but of her being bad at objectives. She's better than any other burst mage had objectives. [00:58:32] Speaker B: Uh, no. Vhagar exists. [00:58:35] Speaker A: Okay, well yes, Vhagar is like the. [00:58:38] Speaker B: Best burst mage at objectives. And it's not close, but true. I still put her Below most other. [00:58:45] Speaker C: Burst mages is Diana a burst Mage or an assassin here? [00:58:49] Speaker B: Assassin. [00:58:50] Speaker A: Assassin. [00:58:50] Speaker B: She's an assassin or she's a fighter. [00:58:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:54] Speaker B: Burst Mage would be someone like Vega. [00:58:56] Speaker C: Is Aurelion Soul, the Burst mage. [00:59:00] Speaker B: No. [00:59:02] Speaker C: I'm trying my way around this. [00:59:04] Speaker A: No, he is. He's like sustained dps. [00:59:07] Speaker C: He is so good. [00:59:08] Speaker B: He's a DPS champ. [00:59:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:10] Speaker B: He is insane at objectives. [00:59:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:13] Speaker B: He's possibly the best champion in the game at objectives. [00:59:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Absolutely not. [00:59:18] Speaker B: Not even like best mage or best like magic damage. Just best champion at objective dps. It's. And again, it's him just if his Q isn't capped. [00:59:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it's him just dealing that consistent damage and constantly re procking like passive and such. [00:59:37] Speaker C: He is quite literally a stacking percentage death bomb. [00:59:43] Speaker B: Yep. [00:59:44] Speaker C: If you get to like 700 stacks, it does outdo Smite. [00:59:48] Speaker B: It is possible for him to reach a point where just the instant kill zone in his E can beat out Smite. It is very silly. Which makes it. If you can reach that point in games. It's very funny with Aurelion Sol because it reaches a point where it doesn't matter which team smites because Aurelion Sol just gets it. Either team can smite it down to Aurelion Sol's execute range and Aurelion Sol gets it. It's so stupid when you reach those points. But it's rare to get that many stacks. [01:00:22] Speaker C: Yeah. They physically can't do damage quick enough to double stack on it. Like you can't even cho goth alt plus a smite into it between the damage between those. [01:00:32] Speaker B: They would have to hit at the same frame. [01:00:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:36] Speaker B: If you have one frame in between the Aurelion Sol takes it. [01:00:40] Speaker C: Because Aurelion Sol's thing is not based on ticks. It's once you reach a certain health threshold, you die. [01:00:48] Speaker B: Yep. Which means the next server tick that happens, if that threshold has been reached, it triggers. [01:00:53] Speaker A: Yep. [01:00:54] Speaker B: And the server ticks. I think 20 times a second in League of Legends. [01:00:58] Speaker C: Sounds right. [01:01:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I think to better like vocalize, like, my frustration with playing against her is the like. And again, my only real experience playing against her outside of like a bot game is she was APC in the bot lane. But it's just the like, even though she doesn't do a lot of damage, she is just consistently able to do damage to you. Like even if her Q only hits one or twice, you're getting hit by it and getting her passive applied. Like her E moves fast enough that you are getting Ticked once or twice by it. Like, she's not doing a lot of damage. [01:01:36] Speaker C: She's, like, fighting his eggs. [01:01:38] Speaker A: It's less damage, but more guaranteed damage. Like, because. [01:01:42] Speaker C: Yes. [01:01:43] Speaker A: You cannot dodge all of her damage because her Q appears instantly. [01:01:48] Speaker B: And I think that's my problem. [01:01:49] Speaker C: It does not appear. Why does it protect our thing? You can dodge it. [01:01:54] Speaker B: You can dodge 100% kills instant. Because by the time you've seen it to react, it's already hit you. It's very fast. [01:02:01] Speaker C: Yes. [01:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like you're reacting to it. If you are at the edge, once. [01:02:05] Speaker B: You cast it, it travels at 3,000 units and it can only travel a thousand units, so it takes a third of a second for it to arrive at its target at max range. [01:02:16] Speaker A: If she centers it on you, you are getting hit by at least one tech. [01:02:20] Speaker B: Yep. And that. That's why you build Liandries in Blackfyre. That's why you take Scorch. Because you just. You will constantly be hitting. It's why presence of mind is in the discussion instead of it always being the ability haste to ruin. Because you're always gonna be hitting. You're constantly gonna be procing that shit. [01:02:41] Speaker C: If you can land them in the center of your queue, you do it. If you can't, just getting them on the edge of it to get a tick is still worth it. [01:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:51] Speaker A: And yeah, I think that's my biggest issue of, like, you know, even, like, Zerith's abilities are reactable. You can see him charging his Q, his W. If you're not dead center, you can dodge out of the way in time. [01:03:04] Speaker C: Like, there is something else that I have noticed that people do not realize or they're doing it on accident. Mel can move during her Q channel. [01:03:13] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. She's just. [01:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a quarter second cast time, and then it shoots bolts over three quarters of a second. [01:03:21] Speaker A: Yeah, she can just put it and walk backwards. Yeah. She's incredibly safe. [01:03:28] Speaker B: Yep. And once she gets rolling, she also can just delete waves because of, again, the way her passive works. And then you just EQ the wave and it's dead. [01:03:38] Speaker A: Yep. [01:03:39] Speaker B: And because you build so much ability haste, that doesn't even put you in any danger because you'll have your E back in four more seconds. [01:03:46] Speaker C: She's great at roaming. [01:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:54] Speaker B: All right. Any other. Any other thoughts about Mel? [01:03:59] Speaker A: I'm not a fan. [01:04:01] Speaker C: I disagree. Hard. [01:04:03] Speaker A: I like the concept. I don't like the execution. [01:04:07] Speaker B: She is fun to pilot. I think they need to take Power out of her reliable damage. Take power out of the actual passive itself. The Ult is fine. Just take power out of the passive itself. [01:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:23] Speaker B: Take power out of the reliability of her Q and E and then make them do more damage to compensate so she can actually deal damage. I think right now she's reliable but low damage. And it feels like the way that her design is going to be fun to both play as and play against is for her to be less reliable but higher damage. [01:04:43] Speaker C: I think the single best way of doing this is to slow the projectile speed down, make it a thousand. You can dodge that. Then it's a one second move. One second channel, one second to get there. [01:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And then just make her stronger to compensate for her shit being less reliable. [01:05:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:03] Speaker B: And I think that's a better version of Mel because then as Mel, you get the high points of, oh, I blew that dude the fuck up, because I actually do damage. Or even you get the high points of, oh, I dodged her abilities and then murdered her. And she couldn't do anything about it because I dodged her abilities. [01:05:21] Speaker A: Or even, like make it work a bit more like Zerath W, where like, she puts the circle. You see it for a quarter second. And then the projectiles come out. They can even be faster at that point so more of them can hit. Just having a little bit more ability to actually react. [01:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I can agree with that. All right. We had other stuff planned, but for some reason we talked for a hour about Mel. So you know what, listeners? You don't get a Lucian top because you didn't write in any questions. But that's gonna be episode467. Write questions in so we can answer them on the show. Write them into theforwardspodcastmail.com seriously, he is. [01:06:05] Speaker A: Really good against Mel. [01:06:08] Speaker B: Lucian. I can see him. I can see him. [01:06:10] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, the dodge. It's so strong. [01:06:13] Speaker B: The. The dodge. The. The Q is not a projectile, so the Q will hit her regardless without being reflected back. [01:06:21] Speaker A: Yep. [01:06:22] Speaker B: And just he does a lot of sustained DPS if he's allowed to stand and fight. So, like, oh, boy, you got one second of immunity. You're still getting cold. [01:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:34] Speaker B: All right, that's it. This has been episode 467. I've been disappointed. Dad Jackson for free, Shooter for Mike and many names. Have a great night. [01:06:47] Speaker C: Good night, everybody. [01:06:51] Speaker A: 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 Four Wards podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.