The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 470: Wash Your Hands

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. Hey, what's up? It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven Jerks and Velkoz. And you're listening to the Four Wards Podcast here to help you move forward in league. Hello and welcome to episode 470 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host, as usual. I'm Jack Sohman and I've got with me three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Hello. Hello. [00:00:52] Speaker A: And we've got Pillow Pat. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Hello. Good evening. Morning. [00:00:57] Speaker A: And then joining us for what, the second or third time this year, shockingly, shockingly reoccurring, we've got Crush. You. [00:01:05] Speaker D: I am replacing Free Shooter. Hooray. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Not. Not really. Guys, Free Shooter will be back. He's just not available this week. [00:01:15] Speaker D: Yeah, he's not feeling well. It's fine. [00:01:18] Speaker A: We're happy to have you back though. You are always welcome back. Of course. [00:01:21] Speaker D: I had to stop playing my mind over magic game for this, so yeah. [00:01:27] Speaker A: I mean, I had to stop playing Poe. We all make sacrifices, guys. We are the Forwards podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games, Come talk about games, ask questions. All of the above. It's a great place to just hang out. It's chill. Come join the Discord. We look forward to seeing you there. We can also be found on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch tv. Jacksoman. Crush can be found at Twitch tv. Crushyou Mike can be found at Twitch tv, mikeofmanynames. And Pillowpet can be found at Twitch tv. Pillowpet. God, how nice is that? All of you guys have easy handles now. Except for Witch, but he's not here so he doesn't get shouted out. Speaking of shout outs, shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet and Robegon for continuing to support us at the shoutout tier on Patreon. Guys, we have a Patreon. If you head over to patreon.com the 4wards 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 of our prep work before each show. And if you want to know what that's like, I left a preview up for everyone last week. So go to the Patreon. You can listen to that preview without even having to pay us any money. And then if you're a superstar, $10 a month will get you that feed and a shout out at the top of every episode. Can't do this without you guys. We really appreciate it. Last but not least, we got one new question this week so you guys don't have to deal with disappointed dad Jacks. But we always need more questions. Guys, write in to the 4wards podcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show. All right, before we get to those questions, let's talk patch 25.04 because thank fuck they're back to a more sensible naming scheme. And everyone except Crush on this show agrees with that. Thank fuck. Too bad you're outvoted. So we're gonna kick this off. I'm gonna talk about something that annoys me and I'm glad that it's nerfed because if you watch pro play, you may have seen an explosion of Elise support and she's oppressive as fuck as support on 25.3. So they're making some changes. They are significantly nerfing the damage of her volatile spiderling and then buffing the attack speed steroid on her W, buffing the cooldown on her W in spider form and buffing the spiderling damage to encourage more DPS from Elise in spider form and less burst from Elise when she's in caster form. Is this enough to knock down support Elise? I actually don't think so, but it's a step in the right fucking direction. I don't like Elise being a one shot champion. I'd much rather her be a DPS spider. [00:04:29] Speaker D: The only thing I'll say about this nerf is that it looks like it exacerbates her weaknesses, which is the late game. [00:04:36] Speaker A: Yep. [00:04:37] Speaker D: Like they knock 20% AP off that W ratio. She's going to do no damage come level 15. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Now, to be fair, they did not touch her percent current health damage on her human Q or her percent missing health damage on her spider Q. She's still going to absolutely chunk. [00:04:57] Speaker D: Yeah, but. [00:04:58] Speaker A: But she will have a lot less free poke. [00:05:00] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:05:03] Speaker A: Which I'm fine with. Poke shouldn't be part of Elise's identity anyway. [00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:06] Speaker A: They're supposed to be a middle champion with one way out. [00:05:11] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. [00:05:16] Speaker A: All right, who wants to go next? [00:05:18] Speaker D: I can go. I want to talk. I want to talk first about the Infinity Edge change, actually. So they're nerfing Infinity Edge. [00:05:28] Speaker A: They're nerf buffing it. [00:05:30] Speaker D: Yeah. So they're. They're nerfing it by taking away five damage and the. But they're buffing it by taking away 150 gold from the price. However 5 damage is worth. Was it less than 150 gold. [00:05:44] Speaker A: It's worth 175 gold because a long sword is 350 for 10. [00:05:48] Speaker D: Yeah. So you're. It's not being reduced by as much as the gold price is going down. So you're losing some. Some efficient gold efficiency on this item now. Which is fine. I think. I think getting it 150 gold earlier. Because what you want Infinity Edge for is for the passive, not so much the ad. It's a. It's a nice thing to have. The passive is what makes it valuable, though. And getting to that spike a little faster. I think it's just a buff they had. They had to take away the damage to keep it from just being a straight OP buff. [00:06:34] Speaker A: I think it's better than the last time they tried to make IE cheaper but weaker, which is where they nerfed the crit damage part of it. [00:06:40] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Which they had to revert because that was a bad change. This is a much better way to make it cheaper but slightly weaker because you can get AD elsewhere. It's not the end of the world that it's slightly less gold efficient. [00:06:55] Speaker B: There are a lot more items that give good amounts of ad and I. Edge isn't what it once was. Was the highest ad item in the game. It's not that anymore. [00:07:04] Speaker D: Correct. Basically, you can tell if Infinity Edge is overpowered if Draven starts building it first. [00:07:12] Speaker A: TR. [00:07:14] Speaker D: He really likes Bloodthirster. [00:07:19] Speaker B: The actual highest 80 item in the game. [00:07:21] Speaker D: Hmm. [00:07:23] Speaker A: Yep. All right, who wants to go next? [00:07:27] Speaker C: I go. So I just had one champion change. This patch that I wanted to talk about, and that was Hue. To me, Hui has been a monster to deal with in games. I think he's incredibly strong and he has a kit that lets him just play extremely safe from across the map. And he has a lot of power in his kit like that. Not only he was safe, he was also extremely effective with damage. So they're. They're pumping down his damage just a little bit to try and deal with that. So his passive is going down 5% and AP ratio on its passive. His QW, which is the lightning bolt that he can send from off screen, is going 20 damage at rank one. And it has five like. So it's going 20, 15, 10, 5, and then it's net zero or net even on the last rank and base damages. His AP ratios are staying the same and his we, which is the stirring lights. And that's where he throws kind of like a. Like the three orbs around his body, I believe. And he Gets powers his autos. [00:08:52] Speaker D: It's Nami E. Yeah. [00:08:54] Speaker C: Nami e empowers his three dot autos. So it's losing five damage. Five base damage on all ranks went from 25 to 65. Now it's scaling 20 to 60 and it also lasts 5% in AP ratio. So I think this is a pretty good touch in the right direction. Excited to see what it does. You're definitely going to be able to tell with the qw early with that 20 damage. It's going to be very noticeable. And that's his main poking tool. [00:09:28] Speaker A: And that's more than it sounds like because that ability does bonus damage based on the target's missing health. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's true. So the reason why the we is. Is a very impactful one is we works on spell casts or autos. And specifically this would be the bonus damage on his. His wave. The. The Rock wave. [00:09:54] Speaker C: Yeah. The. The Turbo wave. [00:09:56] Speaker B: The qe. [00:09:58] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:09:59] Speaker B: And you would pretty much instantly proc your passive if you hit a spell with this because you're hitting technically two separate spells, you're hitting your Q and you're hitting your W. So it's hitting the passive, it's hitting the W and it's hitting the Q all at once. [00:10:16] Speaker C: So he'll still be really strong. Late game. [00:10:19] Speaker B: It's not knocking him over the face. [00:10:21] Speaker C: No. It's just bringing down his. Which is the trend that I've noticed in the last few patches is they're targeting a lot of early game power and keeping it to where you're kind of relatively the same power wise late game. So you're not going to notice it late, you're just going to notice it in your laning phase. So you'll have to make adjustments with your builds. Either more mana so you can make up for the less. The less abilities or more abilities you have to cast or there'll be some kind of adjustment being made. But it's just. [00:10:55] Speaker A: I'm just glad this pushes him further towards building like the Blackfire Torch builds which were already his most popular over like Ludens. [00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So I think. I think it's the good changes. I. I'm. I'm happy to see power being brought away early and then keeping it in the late game because I mean every ability his is almost a skill shot. There needs to be some reward to hitting his abilities. So I'm glad that later on that they're not taking away that reward. [00:11:29] Speaker A: All right, Mike, you want to talk about the other mage with significant changes. [00:11:32] Speaker B: This patch yeah. So they've done a good amount of slight tweaks to a lot of Mel's abilities to do every one of Mel's abilities. And they've done them smartly. So her damage pretty much across the board is either net neutral or a very slight buff. Because what they've decided to change the smart way is her cue her main poke spell. They've reduced the range by 50 and the projectile speed by 500. The exact things we were talking about, reduce the productile speed, reduce a little bit of the range. It's much more balanced. Her W. They've pulled the duration from a 1 second to 3 quarters. They've upped the scaling on her mana cost from 60 to 0 to 80 to 0, so it hurts her more to cast it. And they've slightly nerfed the final portion of the reflected damage from 40 to 70 to 40 to 60, which means you will need to build more AP to 100 reflect damage on a spell. Good change. And then her E has a great one. They they have a scaling root duration. [00:12:54] Speaker A: With. [00:12:57] Speaker B: Has the same final rank and a shorter early rank, one and a quarter to two and a quarter from essentially half a second off of the early one. But in compensation, they've given her 20 scaling damage and a 10 AP ratio. So 60 to 220, 60, 240. And then plus 10% AP. And then finally her passive. The stacks on Overwhelm got another percent AP ratio. These are good changes. These are positive changes. [00:13:31] Speaker A: I want to explain that last one in a way that makes more sense, because it looks like if you just look at the patch notes and you don't really understand, it went from 2 1/2% AP to 3 1/2% AP. What you got to remember is that is per stack of her passive. If you just eq someone and then ult, that's about 20 stacks, give or take. Which means that is a 20% AP ratio buff. [00:13:58] Speaker D: Yep. [00:13:58] Speaker A: That is the, like, bare minimum situation where you cast the ult, it's a 20% AP ratio buff over what it used to be. In a situation where you're allowed to get multiple rotations off and really stack up. If you have a hundred stacks on someone like, let's say a tank, and you're just only able to hit the front line, but you keep smacking them with spells that is a hundred damage, like it's literally one damage per AP per stack at 100, like, it's insane. It adds up so fast. This combined with the E ratio change, I think is enough to make things like death cap actually worth it on her now? [00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's pushing her in the direction to actually want to build ap. You're still going to want plus cooldown reduction as much as you can get, because cooldown reduction is still her primary thing. But now you care more about the damage side than the utility side that you were caring all about on before. So everything before you cared all about the utility on the items. Now you actually give a shit about the AP on items Again. [00:15:05] Speaker A: I think this is enough to unbind her from being hardbound to Liandry's even against Squishies. She'll now build Liandries against tanks, but not against Squishies. [00:15:14] Speaker B: This is also a massive change to try and force her because a lot of people were doing this, I think, incorrectly, to actually scale up e second because the root duration is that much shorter. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Yep. Which you should have been maxing it second before. So I'm fine with that. [00:15:36] Speaker B: And I'm gonna do a real quick one because this is one tiny change that I also think is the best change in the patch that doesn't matter at all. Which is just. Warwick's Q lost 10 mana at all or gained 10 mana at all ranks. They're trying to cost a cost went from 70 to 90 to 80 to 100. This is how you properly nerf something for a top lane and let it just happen in the jungle. No change whatsoever. In the jungle. You get an infinite mana. [00:16:10] Speaker A: Pretty much. [00:16:11] Speaker C: I personally, and I won't dwell on this long, like, I don't feel like Warwick's Q is his problem in the top lane. So we're gonna see what this does, but I really don't see it doing a whole lot. [00:16:24] Speaker A: Warwick's problem in the top lane is the way his passive works combined with his blood scent to where the moment the first minion drops below 50% health, he now has perma buffed attack speed for the remainder of the wave. And if he ever drops below 50%, he almost instantly heals back up to 50%. [00:16:43] Speaker C: Yeah. I think that's where his issue is, is with the passive. It just. Warwick's HP is always a lie. Like you can't ever trust. [00:16:51] Speaker D: Yeah. Yep. [00:16:51] Speaker A: That. That's why you see Warwick tops run barrier is so they can be below 50% and still be safe. [00:17:00] Speaker C: But again, it's. It's a point in the right direction. It'll. It'll minimize the Q spamming a little. [00:17:06] Speaker D: Bit, but it takes some of his sustain away a little bit because it trades more. More drastically. It trades mana for health. [00:17:17] Speaker C: Yeah, you just. It's not gonna. This is not gonna kick him out of the top lane like they're kind of hoping. [00:17:23] Speaker B: No, this is a proper nerf to chop him down a little bit. This is not. Get out of here completely. It's. Be a little more competitive. [00:17:31] Speaker C: Yeah, fair enough. [00:17:35] Speaker A: All right. Speaking of proper ways to nerf someone, I'm gonna talk about Diana Nerfs for a moment. Diana was basically one of the strongest junglers last patch. And even with these changes, I think she's still a really strong jungler. So the NERF is. They knocked her bonus damage on her passive to monsters from 300% to 225%. She still chunks the shit out of monsters very quickly the moment you start getting any ap. This does significantly slow down her first clear, which was one of the fastest clears in the game. So now it's just good instead of obscene. And she still. Once you will. Once you get like a Nashors, she'll delete the entire jungle in a minute. Like she's still gonna clear super fast. And the compensation for this change is they're giving her 10 base damage on Q&6 base damage on W, which is intended to try to make Lane Diana a little less bad. I still think Lane Diana is kind of bad generally, but it's a nudge in the right direction. And she needed the monster damage nerf to be brought down. She was the highest clear speed jungler in the game. And it wasn't close. Like when I was a two item Diana, I was killing camps in literally like two seconds for the entire camp. And I don't mean like Raptors, I mean like Gromp. [00:19:14] Speaker D: So having played a decent amount of Jungle Diana recently, this change won't do a whole lot. The. The compensation buffs to the Q and W almost offset the passive damage on the first clear. Almost. [00:19:39] Speaker A: They don't quite. It's still a few seconds off your first clear. But she had those seconds to spare. [00:19:46] Speaker B: The main thing is that her first clear is all about auto attacks instead of your Q and your W and 10 damage will help a ton. You're getting two to three rotations of Q on a big buff and one rotation of W. Yeah. [00:20:02] Speaker D: So again, having played Jungle Diana, it's actually the other way around. The first couple of the first, I want to say five clears, primarily you're doing damage through the Q and the W. Like you have several rotations of the Q and several rotations of the W. I think two rotations of the W. Once you get to a point where you clear in. In one cycle of your passive, that's when you stop. You stop casting W. [00:20:32] Speaker A: And you hit that point very quickly before. Because her. Her Passive has a 50% AP ratio before the monster damage multiplier. So if you bought 50 AP that was like 200 damage on monsters. Now it's only 175 or whatever. 160. 163 I think. Don't do math on stream, kids. [00:20:57] Speaker D: Yeah, don't. Something like that. So this will affect her. I don't think it will. So the other thing that really concerns me is the description. The last sentence of the description for it is that they're trying to increase her early game flat damage as a way to open up non assassin build paths. I don't know if you know this but the current best build for Diana is a Liandry's into. What is it? Something stupid. [00:21:31] Speaker B: Are you talking Tank? Diana? Where you go? Unending Despair Undying. [00:21:35] Speaker D: Yeah, that's it. Unending Despair. That's the current best build for Diana. Like I tried it and it's dumb. It's really good. [00:21:41] Speaker A: As of this patch or as of last patch? [00:21:43] Speaker D: Last patch. [00:21:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Because Unending Despair also got changes. But yeah, the. The. What I was doing was Nashor's Riftmaker into Tank. [00:21:54] Speaker D: Right. If you. Yeah, if you do Leandri's Riftmaker into into Tank, it's. It's better. Which is weird for Diana. Which is weird for Diana because Nashers is. She used to be one of the champions. That was pretty hard. Bounded Nashers because of the way her passive works. It's weird that Landry's was better, but it was. It was nuts. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Fair enough. You want to talk about someone else who was nuts and got nerfed back down? So now they're buffing her back up a bit. [00:22:24] Speaker D: Yeah. So Ash. Ash got hit by the Nerf bat pretty hard. She went overnight for being one of the best ad carries of one of the worst ad carries. So now they're buffing her back up. I. I don't like the way they do this, but it's whatever. I guess they have to make changes to make changes. They're. They're putting her W80 ratio back where it was. It's 110% bonus AD. I remember they nerfed it down so yay. Her Q80 ratio went up. They gave it an extra one scaling damage every rank. So from 110 to 130 now it's 111 to 135% AD, which I think is total AD, but I believe so they also gave. And the funniest part of the buff is they gave her ultimate R the arrow, an extra flat 50 damage. And then if you didn't know this, your arrow does damage around who you hit and slows it doesn't. It doesn't just stun the target and deal damage to the target, but it does damage to everything around it. It'll now do the damage to everything. It used to be it would do half damage to around it, and now it's just doing full damage to everything around it, which is pretty. I think that's actually the biggest part. Buff to her right here. [00:24:00] Speaker B: It's hilarious. [00:24:01] Speaker A: So actually a Sylas buff is what you're saying? [00:24:07] Speaker D: God, yes. Oh, no. [00:24:10] Speaker A: For those who don't know, Ash's Ult at max rank does 650/120% AP. You are going to see Sylas's Steel Baron with enchanted crystal arrow because it is going to out damage smite. [00:24:28] Speaker B: I don't know with Baron's Mr. But it'll be close to it. [00:24:33] Speaker A: It'll out damage smite if Jinx Rocket can steal it. Ash Ult stolen by Sylas. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Well, Jinx Rocket actually deals bonus damage per low. Yeah, but. [00:24:44] Speaker D: Yeah, that's. That's. That's a lot of damage there in that ultimate. Now for Silas. [00:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah, but. But for. For her. Her rebuffs, you also gotta remember that they've also systematically since they nerfed Ash slightly nerfed down a lot of what were her core items. I edge got nerfed. She's pretty hardbound to I edge for a long time. For a long time. Not necessarily now because she's going on hit. A lot of times they did to the static shiv. [00:25:22] Speaker D: So like static shiv got nerfed. But that was. That was an item for everybody. It wasn't specifically Ash just. [00:25:29] Speaker B: No, but that was really like she was using it all the time. And then Kraken Slayer. So like her. Her items have been eating nerfs and her. And so like all of these combined, the. The ultimate buff is hilarious, but the like the rebuff to W and the minor buff to Q, those are pretty compensatory. Compensatory to her losses. [00:26:00] Speaker A: I just hate that they're buffing the W again because every time they buff the W ratio, we get these stupid poke Ash builds where they build Trinity Force and just spam W. And I'd much rather have seen a bigger buff to the Q, which is the actual, like auto attack ad carry steroid. [00:26:15] Speaker D: Mm. We might see more support Ash with this. Might. [00:26:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:27] Speaker B: Odds. What are the odds? AP Ash comes back with really low gold. Cool. Cooldown alts. [00:26:35] Speaker C: I mean, when you start adding that new. What is it? Arcanis rune, whatever it is. Ultimate Rune. Now her ultimate. Yeah, now her ultimate is going to be doing that much more damage. I see it, man. I see it all the time. [00:26:50] Speaker A: Like fucking Axiom Arcanist Comet Ash with ultimate hunter as her secondary rune. [00:26:58] Speaker C: I see it. I see. [00:26:59] Speaker A: Just for maximum Ult cooldown, we cook in here. [00:27:03] Speaker C: Like, Lee Andrews is already really strong on her volley anyway, so, like, we're. [00:27:09] Speaker D: Cooking up some ice arrows today, boys. [00:27:12] Speaker C: I'm not happy with. I mean, I think it's going to be funny. [00:27:15] Speaker B: This is like the. This is the Aram special. [00:27:19] Speaker D: Yes. [00:27:19] Speaker A: In Aram, that build will actually be good. [00:27:22] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. [00:27:24] Speaker B: But it like it ult every 25 seconds or something. It's disgusting. [00:27:29] Speaker D: Okay, that'll be funny. [00:27:32] Speaker A: Mike, it's time for us to talk about stuff that isn't champions. [00:27:36] Speaker B: All right. [00:27:37] Speaker A: About honor. [00:27:38] Speaker B: So I've been very vocal about how Riot has been stealing all of my things away to give me free stuff, and they've taken away one of my last ones for the most part. [00:27:51] Speaker D: I'm sorry, just. They stole your free stuff? Yes. Yeah, they did. I'm not. I'm not debating it. It's just a funny way to say it is all it is. [00:27:59] Speaker B: It is. It is a weird way to say it. So as opposed to building honor towards the end of year, Honor cap to give yourself a little bonus. And then you get to choose a skin that they haven't updated in ages. But while you're on the way to getting honor, you gain other tokens per achievement ranks that would give you keys and. And essence, etc. Those are gone because they've completely redesigned what Honor is. And outside of me being annoyed that they've taken away more sources of keys, which means I'm never going to be able to open my 65 chests. [00:28:49] Speaker D: It'S. [00:28:50] Speaker B: Technically a good change. So what they've decided to do is make Honor a system that updates all the time based on how people honor you. Honor three is the standard neutral. This is where people who just go in play the game. Don't talk to anybody, don't give honors, don't receive honors. That's where you'll land. If you are consistently getting reports on you, you will Start to degrade into Honor 2 and Honor 1. And when you degrade according to this system, you will start having things restricted from you. Like potentially chats and pings. Just straight up. You can't use them. Maybe it's not exactly completely discussed. [00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah, no, they have a whole fact. If you are honor 2, you lose access to all chat. If you are honor 1, you lose access to all chat. Champion select chat and post game chat. The number of pings you can use in game goes down as you drop Honor ranks and goes up at 4 and 5. Same for emote spam. And only honor 5 can target allies with pings. [00:30:13] Speaker D: Oh, I actually like that now that I've. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Now that I've looked at what. Yeah, I didn't see the FAQ before. These are really good changes. They also have Honor 3, Honor 4 and Honor 5 will give you the ranked season rewards which were those skins I said before. So they're actively just giving everybody who maintains real honor. Bowser, Harshan, Akshan, Warwick and a twitch skin and then apparently the chromos. So it's. It's a good change. I'm just really annoyed I don't have another source of keys because having a. Having a way to not have to like always ban somebody before they get all their stuff. Just have a. No, your honor is low. You are not being a good teammate. You can't chat now. [00:31:14] Speaker D: Yeah, that's actually. [00:31:15] Speaker A: I like you're someone. I think you have a lot of chests still. [00:31:20] Speaker B: I literally have 65 chests. 66. I'm sorry. [00:31:26] Speaker A: So you feel the loss of keys a lot more than most people. [00:31:32] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:31:35] Speaker B: Yes. [00:31:35] Speaker A: All right. Overall, we think it's mostly a good. [00:31:40] Speaker D: Change with them taking out the hextech chest. I am not surprised they took this out. Like they. The. The entire point of the hextech chest and key system was that you had to both play the game and be a good person to get rewards. They've taken away half of that, so this has taken away the other half. I am not surprised. The keys would have been useless in a bit anyway. [00:32:04] Speaker A: My only issue with this is that team chat in game is still available at honor level one. [00:32:12] Speaker D: Yeah, I noticed that too. [00:32:14] Speaker A: It should be like limited. Like if you are Honor one, it should actually just be chat restricted every game until you get out of honor 1. [00:32:23] Speaker B: There needs make it a little less. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Severe than the punishment chat restriction version. [00:32:28] Speaker B: This. This I think should be something like you have party chat only which you can talk to the people that you're in a game with. That I'm always fine with. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Yes. That should always exist. They. They are people who have opted in to be exposed to your chat. [00:32:41] Speaker B: But team chat should be like, you can only do a chat every minute or two or something or nothing. Like you have no access to properly spam talk to people. [00:32:49] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:32:50] Speaker C: I mean they could just do what they done already with chat restrictions. You get like five messages a game. [00:32:55] Speaker B: But this is also the first iteration. And the first iteration has a lot of things that we think are really positive. [00:33:04] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:33:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:06] Speaker C: I'm always about a more. Less toxic environment. Like that's. There's. You're never going to hear me complain that they're trying to take steps to make the game less toxic. [00:33:17] Speaker A: Yep. Now if only they'd start banning the Nazis. I have seen literally multiple people straight up say actual Nazi shit in my games in the last month. It pisses me off so much. [00:33:34] Speaker C: It's. [00:33:34] Speaker B: It's been a surprising thing. Like I have. Every time I have seen it, I have immediately gotten a. Your feedback has been done. Something has happened to them. But the fact that people are just continuously showing up like this needs to be these people. This is what kernel level restrictions are for. They should have it. Your computer is not banned. [00:33:52] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. Let's not dwell on that too much pillow. Take us home. Tell us about boots. What changed with boots? [00:34:01] Speaker C: So the big changes are with our defensive boots. So you got your Merc treads and your plated steel caps. So the Merc trads, they are just bumping the price, the cost down by 50 gold, which might not seem like a lot, but percentage wise they say it's going to be like when you get 125 gold off a legendary item, you're going to notice you're going to have 50 gold. You know that extra 50 gold, you're going to feel that early. If you're doing an early upgrade on boots like a lot of people who are building these boots usually do. The big change to me comes down to the plated steel caps. So what they're doing with those is it was 12% of your auto attack damage was blocked or reduced and now it's now 10%. This is the only item in the game that I know of that has this kind of like power that doesn't tell you the numerical value of it. At the end of the game, I would love to be able to know what how much damage. [00:35:05] Speaker A: The only one. [00:35:06] Speaker C: But I mean like the one that like, matters to me. Like, I would love to know how much damage my Plated steel caps are actually blocking by the end of the game. [00:35:14] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, I want that. I want to know how much Rift Maker has healed me. [00:35:19] Speaker C: There is this. These are the strongest boots and they even. They even talk about like they are the strongest boots because a 10% or at that case 12% previously blocked in auto attacks is a lot of damage when you are constantly under threat of being auto attacked. So I think this is a decent move in a nice power shift. I mean 2% is quite a bit when you're talking with these low percentages already. [00:35:48] Speaker B: So you're considering late game ad carries are hitting for 5, 6, 7, 700 per auto attack. Dropping that down by 10% is massive. [00:36:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. They're huge. It's huge boost. [00:36:02] Speaker B: And I believe this is pre damage reduction. Like this is pre armor bonus. [00:36:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:07] Speaker B: So this is. You're going from 700 to 630. Then armor is applied. [00:36:13] Speaker A: I mean because it's all multiplication, it doesn't matter what the order is. [00:36:18] Speaker C: So you're. I think, you know, long story short, you're going to feel that 2% because it is. You're going to notice it. But it's not going to be a giant. Like you're not going to. It's not going to be a huge noticeable difference. [00:36:33] Speaker A: There's one going to be godly against auto attackers. [00:36:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. They're still going to be good for what they're good at. They're just not going to be as good. They were very strong. Extremely strong. They needed the Nerf and then another. [00:36:43] Speaker D: Small. [00:36:46] Speaker C: Nerf or a buff to the Symbiotic Souls. They're underperforming. Nobody wants them. [00:36:51] Speaker D: They needed them. [00:36:52] Speaker C: They're going 5. They're getting 5 base flat movement speed. So from 35 to 40, the evolved movement speed is still unchanged at 45. They're just trying to get it to where more people feel like they should take these as an option early. Which I think they're usually just supports and there's some niche cases and some laners taking them. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Sports support. [00:37:17] Speaker A: Basically. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:18] Speaker D: It's literally just supports and I think maybe two junglers ever. [00:37:22] Speaker A: And Quinn. [00:37:24] Speaker C: Yeah, and Quinn. She's. Yeah. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Quinn was the weird case because of the way her all works. [00:37:29] Speaker D: Yeah. I disagree on the other changes. The Symbiotic Souls is a good change. The Mercreds isn't going to do anything. Played steel caps. They weren't the strongest boot that Swifties. So whatever. [00:37:42] Speaker A: Swifties were the strongest boot. If you won the feats without winning the feats, I think Steel Caps were the strongest. [00:37:48] Speaker D: I disagree. [00:37:50] Speaker A: But fair enough. [00:37:52] Speaker D: I disagree to disagree on that one. And this is. This is like as someone that the thing I was playing the most was like Nocturne or Ad Carries. So not. No, it's. Yeah, it's whatever. I don't. I don't agree. I think. I think Swifties are still the best boot. I don't know if it's close. [00:38:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they're certainly the best boot now. Regardless of whether they were before or not. [00:38:21] Speaker D: I mean, I'll give you that. [00:38:23] Speaker B: I think the only, the only boot that compares is Merc Trans in high CC games. [00:38:28] Speaker D: Yeah, I agree with that. [00:38:31] Speaker A: And it has to be specifically hard cc cause Swifties reduce the power of slows instead of the duration like Merc Shreds and power is usually more effective to do. Alright, let me talk about a couple of tank items real quick. Cause if you've been playing the last couple patches, you may have noticed that every tank is building Heartsteel. Every tank is building Unending Despair. And if they're not a mana less tank, they're also building Fimbulwinter. So those items are all getting a Nerf bat. This patch Fimbulwinter lost up to 80 of its shield depending on your level. Heartsteel lost 2% of its max health bonus. So it should scale up. Your health slower than it did before. Went from 10 to 8% so it's actually a 20% hit to the total gain. Thank fuck. And Unending Despair lost its flat damage. It now strictly does 3% of bonus health with no flat scaling at all. These items are still good, but it should mitigate the. Oh well. This tank now steamrolls the entire game because they got Heartsteel and got ahead and now they're unkillable and heal for a psycho amount and shield for a psycho amount and murder you. And they have 10,000 health now for some reason. [00:39:58] Speaker D: Yeah. I'm going to point out that I like these changes because they. Except for the fimble winter, they address how much damage tanks do. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Yes. [00:40:08] Speaker B: So there was never a damage one. It was always just pure survive. [00:40:14] Speaker D: Correct. And Heartsteel is very interesting to me. I like that. Nerf is an interesting Nerf to me because it specifically hits the damage that deals and how much it scales as well like that's compound while at the. [00:40:27] Speaker A: Same time hitting the. The scaling more than the damage. Which is what I like because it should have the identity of. It's a big health item that makes Tanks hurt you. [00:40:38] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:40:38] Speaker A: It shouldn't have the identity of, oh, buy this early and have 10,000 health. And at the end of the game, I. This item in. In like extreme cases, I was seeing like a Shen support that had over 2,000 stacks on that. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Me and Mike, we had a Shen support in an. In a 40 minute game who had 10,000 health. [00:41:01] Speaker D: That's. [00:41:02] Speaker A: That's. [00:41:02] Speaker B: This wasn't. [00:41:03] Speaker A: That's not hyperbole. He literally had like 2500 stacks on his heart steel, which means it was worth three and a half warmogs worth of health. Health. [00:41:12] Speaker D: Oh, my God. I actually. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Stupid. [00:41:17] Speaker D: So I kind of hate Heart Seal as an item because it's really good. I think if they wanted to actually fix it, they would take away the damage component entirely from it. If you want damage from health, there's already an item for that. It's called Overlord's Bloodmail. Just go build that. [00:41:38] Speaker B: Once they added Overlords blood mail, I think they should have taken the damage component of her steel. I think you're right. [00:41:43] Speaker D: I do like the minigame gives damage. [00:41:46] Speaker A: From health for champions that scale with AD Heart Steel allows champions like Maokai to get more damage out of hell. [00:41:54] Speaker D: That is true. However, I will push back on it and say that Heart Seal and Overlord's blood mail both trigger off auto attacks. The damage that they deal is from auto attacks. I do like the minigame that Hearthsteal does where you have to actually be in combat for a bit and then. [00:42:15] Speaker A: Hit them where you can't just poke with it. So it's not useful on someone like Ezreal, for example. [00:42:20] Speaker D: Right? Yeah, it's. Yeah, I like that part of it. [00:42:25] Speaker A: God, can you imagine if it didn't have that heart steel? [00:42:28] Speaker D: Ezreal would actually be meta Gangplank as gangplank Heart Seal. That would be rude. [00:42:35] Speaker A: It's already almost meta. [00:42:38] Speaker D: It's very close. It'd be even worse. [00:42:41] Speaker A: I'm so glad it's not. All right, who put our trinket tip is this? Whoever it is, read the trinket tip and we're going to questions. [00:42:49] Speaker C: That was me. My trinket tip is very simple. Wash your hands. And the reason I say this, there is a lot of illnesses going around right now. And the number one combative thing you can can do to stop the spread of them is to just wash your hands. [00:43:05] Speaker A: Seriously, y'all, don't be gross. Just wash your hands. [00:43:09] Speaker B: Don't cough into your hands directly either. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Use your elbow and remember to mute your mic when you do. [00:43:15] Speaker D: Eh, Shut up. [00:43:20] Speaker A: All right, guys, it's questions time. Our first question tonight comes from Sebastian, who writes, hello. Hello. You asked for some questions, so here I am. I'm a new listener, so I should probably know this, but I'll start by asking, what rank are you guys? [00:43:33] Speaker D: Well, I mean, my rank just changed. I'm now Platinum 4, so. Yay. [00:43:38] Speaker A: Yay. Congratulations. [00:43:40] Speaker D: Hooray. [00:43:42] Speaker C: I am Gold 3. And I've played, like, maybe 10 ranked games. My. Not right now, but my peak is usually in, like, Emerald when I do actually play. [00:43:58] Speaker A: So what I'm hearing is when I come back to league, grab pillow for. [00:44:01] Speaker C: Duo Q eventually, yes, I will. I'm always down to play. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Mike. [00:44:10] Speaker B: As I have told a lot of people a lot of times, I don't really do solo queue, so Flex is where I do most of my ranked. And I'm flat in there. [00:44:18] Speaker D: That counts. [00:44:19] Speaker A: I think you're like, technically Silver or something in solo queue, but it's just games you've played with me on my Smurf, pretty much. [00:44:28] Speaker B: I have played so few solo queue games that I don't know if I've gotten my official rank. I probably have, but I don't recognize. [00:44:37] Speaker A: How many I've done currently. Bronze one. But you've played a total of 11 games. [00:44:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I've barely played. [00:44:47] Speaker A: And of those 11, all 11 were with me. [00:44:50] Speaker B: But also the. The other half of that is the exact same games. I do 90% of my flex games with Jax. And yep, there's plat. So, like, that's the dichotomy of that. [00:45:04] Speaker A: Yep. I'm currently plat 3 in solo queue with 201 games played. I have no life, guys. [00:45:15] Speaker B: I will be. [00:45:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I will. I will probably make Emerald. That's the goal. We'll see how much I play to whether I push past that. We'll see because there's other stuff that grabs my interest. Well, don't forget the story I told last week. I may not have the money to be able to afford the other things, so I might be grinding league anyway. [00:45:37] Speaker B: There's no reset for splits, so it's just until the end of the year. They have, so you have plenty of time to hit Emerald. [00:45:46] Speaker A: I'm so thankful for that. So thankful for that. All right, moving on to real questions. What are your thoughts on Brand? If I'm not mistaken, he's now mostly played as an AD carry. Well, AD carry, not quite, but we know what you mean. Yeah, but I find him to be viable as both Jungle versus a Slow paced jungler and as a support with the right AD carry and into tanks who are now meta. [00:46:11] Speaker B: I'm gonna just flat out tell ya right now, he not played as an AP carry mostly he has like 10% as AP carry. He is 60 something percent played as a support and then his jungle used to be very high up there but since all he's caught a lot of nerfs in the jungle he's dropped back down to a little bit over the the AP carry. So he's at like 17, 18%. So like he is primarily played as a support and he's very strong at it. [00:46:47] Speaker C: And there's a, there's a good reason why a lot of people play him as a support because when you're in a solo queue game you can't always depend on your ADC and as an ADC you can't always depend on your support. So you're in, you're in there to win. And brand brings a lot to a table where it is he's got cc, he's got tons of damage, he has huge team fight presence, huge teamfight presence. So he can like almost solo carry a game solo carry his adc. [00:47:24] Speaker A: I did check you gg. His second most played role right now is actually mid. [00:47:30] Speaker B: Hey, he's got mid lane back. [00:47:32] Speaker D: So brand is a very interesting champion and the only place you can't or well shouldn't play him is top lane. Like that's it, you can play him mid, you can play him as the bot lane carry, you can play him as support, you can play him jungle. It's a very rare champion that could do all that could do four roll four out of the five roles and Bran can do it. The I think his weakest role is probably is the bot lane carry. He goes in and out of meta on mid lane but bot lane carry, he's almost always the weakest. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:06] Speaker D: It's not unplayable, you can still do it. It's just that if you looking for brand type stuff out of the bot lane carry role, most AD carries do the same thing better Ash specifically the. [00:48:21] Speaker A: Places where brand as a carry is good. The reason it's more mid lane than bot lane is you want to play brand into champions like Galio and Cho'gath where they're tanky. So brand's percent health damage burn is going to burn them down over time and they don't have a huge like dive on you threat so he can sit back and throw his spells at them over and over. [00:48:42] Speaker D: Yeah, in bot Lane. [00:48:44] Speaker A: There's two people who are going to look to murder you if you ever miss a spell. [00:48:48] Speaker D: The reason that he plays so well as a support is because he plays very well with a low gold income. Gold low economy. Because his passive does damage based on max health has it. It has an AP ratio, but his. [00:49:06] Speaker A: AP ratios actually suck. [00:49:08] Speaker B: It's pretty decent for. For what he's doing. For the amount of percent hits he's doing. It needs to be at a low. It needs to be like that 30 range because it's. He's entirely basically dots except for his W. Everything is multi hit. Multi hit, multi hit. The reason why he's so good at support is he gets returned all of that poke directly at the enemy. [00:49:31] Speaker D: The. The. The reason why he's good at support is a similar reason why Ash is good in ad carry roll. He's good no matter what. If you get dumpsters, your ultimate still does a lot of damage in team fights. Like a Level 6 brand is always dangerous. You have to always think about approaching teamfights with a brand in it. Because he does a lot of damage even from behind. Even on those low low economy roles like support. [00:49:59] Speaker A: And even if you're behind, you'll still usually make it to Rylai's first, which when you're behind is what you should do as support brand. [00:50:07] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:50:08] Speaker A: And then you'll just slow the entire enemy team in every team fight, which is super valuable. [00:50:13] Speaker D: And Jungle Brand works similarly in that he. He takes over team fights. And specifically low elo team fights are sort of what decide the game. So yeah, I would say Brand's fine. I would say primarily play him in support. A little bit of jungle, a little bit of mid lane. I would not play him as a bot lane carry. Right now. You can. [00:50:38] Speaker A: I think he's fine to play as a bot lane carry against champions like Ziggs where you're just trading spells at each other. I would not play him against an actual marksman. [00:50:47] Speaker B: He's not as the carry. He is not good against marksman unless you are also rocking with Senna. And that is the specific case because Senna is there as your other person with a lot of range. [00:51:01] Speaker A: Fair enough. [00:51:02] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:51:05] Speaker A: And he's not terrible bot. Just he's like B tier. [00:51:08] Speaker B: He's just so much better as the support. [00:51:11] Speaker D: Yeah, basically. [00:51:13] Speaker A: All right. He has more questions. [00:51:15] Speaker D: Yep. [00:51:15] Speaker A: Which otacon would you say is the strongest for high elo solo queue? [00:51:20] Speaker B: None of us are there. [00:51:22] Speaker A: None of us are in Masters plus, which is what he wrote. But we're gonna. We're gonna change it to just higher elo because if he's a newer player, newer listener, he's going to be perceiving masters plus and not realizing how much of a gulf that is from, like, platinumerald. So let's say, like, what otacon is the strongest when people kind of know what they're doing. And I think the answer doesn't change. It's still voracious. [00:51:47] Speaker C: I'll say. I think voracious would have to be my answer. [00:51:52] Speaker B: It's. It's voracious. Ruinous is really, really strong in low elo for two reasons. You're constantly getting in fights, so you're using that extra bonus AP ad that you're getting all over the place. And you'll likely see full dragon stacks into Dragon soul consistently. So you're getting those dragon pumps. [00:52:16] Speaker A: God. Even in plat, the number of times I have seen a team just throw the fucking game trying to contest Attacon when there's been like two dragons taken one on each team. And I'm like, this doesn't matter. Why the fuck are you throwing the game over this objective? [00:52:31] Speaker D: I heard a hot take and they defended it. And I kind of agree with it in that otacon basically doesn't matter. You should never throw the game for trying to take otacon. [00:52:46] Speaker B: The only reason to fight for otacon is if you think you're going to win the fight. I like that's the only reason to fight for otacon. If you're not winning that fight, don't fight. [00:52:59] Speaker A: So many worth attempting a suicide steal on Voracious, but only with your jungler, not your whole team. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Yeah, walking to go kill yourself and get a smite steel if you can smite. [00:53:12] Speaker D: Okay, so voracious otacon is extremely weak to smite steel. If you take it. If you're trying to take it and you don't know where the enemy jungler is, you're doing it wrong. [00:53:25] Speaker A: Yep. [00:53:26] Speaker D: Because it's the. It's the. It's the worst to have smite stolen. Because when they come in and smite seal it and then you kill them, they just withdraw. You get 200 gold and he comes back to base. It. It's almost like it didn't matter. [00:53:42] Speaker A: It's much lower risk to commit for a suicide smite steal than any any. [00:53:46] Speaker D: Other buff is in the entire game. [00:53:48] Speaker A: If you succeed, you don't die. [00:53:50] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. Like, so there's that. I have seen so many losing games turn into Wins because they try and take otacon slowly, and then the losing team comes in and wipes them. It is. [00:54:09] Speaker A: The debuff is no joke. [00:54:12] Speaker D: It is a trap. Like Otacon is a trap more than anything else in the game. I. If you go through your life and don't ever take otacon, I think you're fine. [00:54:25] Speaker B: I think all of us might actually agree that Otacon is the single weakest epic monster to take. It gives you less benefit than any other single monster. [00:54:37] Speaker D: I misinterpreted that by thinking you were saying it was like one of the easiest to take is like, it's not. [00:54:43] Speaker A: It's like a weakest benefit. [00:54:46] Speaker D: We just benefit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:54:47] Speaker B: It's worse than getting three grubs. It's worse than getting a single dragon. It's worse than getting Baron. Very obviously, Harold, the only way that it's not as weak as a single one is a poorly used herald. [00:55:04] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. So there's basically Otacon is on the level of single dragon without the prospect of getting four of them, and then you get an awesome buff and poorly used herald. Like, that's how poor otacon buff is, in my opinion. The. It's hard to me for me to identify which one's better because if you. I think if you know what you're doing, Voracious is better and Ruinous is better if just generically, like, you have to be. You have to be really good at using the withdrawal thing on Voracious in order for it to be better than Ruinous, is my opinion on it. [00:55:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:52] Speaker D: But even then, it. Taking Ruinous is close to killing the a single fire dragon. [00:55:59] Speaker A: And even in pro play, you see teams get voracious otacon, get the withdraw buff, and then just throw it away and hand the enemy team a thousand gold because they picked a dumb fight. [00:56:10] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:56:10] Speaker B: Yep. Happens all the time. Or. Or they do the. The single dumbest thing, which is almost kill it and then run away and leave it for the enemy. If you're. If you're already almost killing it, you need to try and take it most. If it's at like less than 3, 000 health, you need to try and take it. [00:56:31] Speaker D: Most of the games I see turn on an otacon fight are voracious otacon fights. Because Voracious Oticon hits like a truck and doesn't care Like Ruinous, you can dodge it by being inside the middle and it doesn't really hurt. It makes it very easy for the enemy team. Yeah, it. It makes it easier for the other enemy team to. You're all grouped in one spot. They can drop an Orianna Ult on your face. Sure. But Voracious actually hurts you if you do that as well. So it's. It forces you to play a split fight instead. And Voracious And Otacon pit is a terrible place to fight. Like, it's so bad. [00:57:13] Speaker B: So many reason. [00:57:14] Speaker D: It's. Otacon's a trap. I think you should try to avoid it if you can. So I think we got a Conrad. [00:57:25] Speaker C: Ruinous is the most satisfying when you get to punch flowers. [00:57:28] Speaker D: This is. [00:57:29] Speaker B: It does feel nice to punch flowers. [00:57:31] Speaker D: I do forget to punch flowers every so often. It's like, oh, yeah, I need to punch the flowers. [00:57:35] Speaker A: All right, that's enough Minecraft for one podcast. Next question is, would you prefer playing for six grubs or two drinks? [00:57:42] Speaker D: Six grubs. Six grubs. Six grubs dot six grubs. Six grubs. [00:57:45] Speaker B: Depends on the team comp. [00:57:48] Speaker D: Six round all day, every day. [00:57:51] Speaker A: Okay. Any situation where first tower is likely to decide feats. Six grubs. I have had games where my bot lane is doing well, but not well enough to demolish the enemy turret and my top lane is a lost cause against a split pusher. And I know that by three minutes. You bet your ass I'm going for dragons because I am never getting first turret and that lost cause is giving them the feet of warfare. Anyway, I'm going to go for dragons because our wincon now becomes Get Soul before their top laner is out of control so much we can't deal with them. [00:58:26] Speaker B: The thing is, I'm going to do a little bit of a weird caveat here, and this is something I said a couple of times back. If you're giving away six grubs for free, I think you're doing it wrong as a jungler giving away six grubs. You should try and go to get a smite seal so they don't get sex. [00:58:45] Speaker D: I remember you said that last week. But if you are asking me neutral, neutral state of game or whatever state of game and you could just have six shrubs or have two dragons. I will always say give me six grubs. Losing, winning, neutral state. I don't care. Six scrubs are better than two dragons. Dragons. Dragons are the second weakest epic monster to take out a console. Weakest. We talked about that. [00:59:17] Speaker A: Their buffs suck. [00:59:18] Speaker D: Their buffs suck until you get four of them. [00:59:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Unless you are getting multiple separate of the same one, their buffs are not great. So the first two dragons, you'll see a lot of people just forfeit them. [00:59:28] Speaker D: And if you do trade, if you take two dragons and they take six grubs, they're going to have more money to fight you on dragons 3, 4, 5 and 6. [00:59:37] Speaker A: Yep. [00:59:38] Speaker D: They you're going, you are more likely to lose the next dragons. That's why six grubs. The only time, the only time I don't go for grubs is if my top lane is getting his ass beat. [00:59:52] Speaker A: Because that's why, that was my example. Because you don't get those grubs if your top lane's getting your ass correct. [00:59:56] Speaker D: The top layer, the, the number of times that I have died at lost grubs because top lane knew what the fucking map was on the enemy team and mine didn't. I cannot count. It has happened so many times that if I see my top laner pushed into the turret, I give up grubs. I just don't even go there. I put a ward out so I can see when I can go take dragon. [01:00:24] Speaker B: So, so if, if, if I'm the jungler and I have gotten two drakes and let's say we go with this really early. I've gotten the first strike five minutes right at spawn Drake's or grubs haven't even spawned yet. I'm gonna go contest those, those grubs because if I can get a smite still on one of them, it's worth it. If I can maybe steal one of them, it's worth it. Taking away the three grubs is very potent. Denying the potential feed stack is, is okay. It's not the biggest thing in the world. Making sure they aren't getting or guaranteeing themselves. The second little grubbin is huge for split pushing. So if I'm not selling my life on both the dragon and the grubs, if I have to sell my life once, get one and a half objectives, I'm okay with that as long as it's not cascaded into multiple other deaths there. [01:01:24] Speaker D: I don't know if I agree with that. So I said six grubs, one grub. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Is playing for not getting. [01:01:32] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. So but what it is, you can, you can. What I'm having trouble deciding on is is it worth it to go in and smite, steal a grub and die for it if it's just your first grub and your only grub or if it's just heck if it's Just the first grub. We'll leave open the possibility that maybe you can contest and take all three and get to four, which is the magic number. I don't know if it's worth it, giving over a kill. The feast. [01:02:02] Speaker B: That depends on the game state. Yeah, because if, if you're. If you're one of the feats and you're already most of the game feats, like we said, feats aren't the be all end all. But denying them the ability to get an early feat, just denying that really quickly, you're most likely to have already seen the three deaths happen. Because people die so quickly. [01:02:26] Speaker D: Yeah, it's. [01:02:27] Speaker A: Here's. Here's the thing with the feats. It's not about the power of the feat. It's about if you give over six grubs, your team now is going to FF15 because they think feats are everything and you've just given them up. [01:02:41] Speaker B: If they have six grubs, they're almost assuredly getting the entirety of defeats. They're getting the towers, they're getting probably the kills because they have a significantly stronger top half. And AD carries are not strong enough early game to absolutely dominate unless it shoves the whole wave in. So like it, it massively skews the amount of power in the early game to one team and then usually a game snowballs into a victory because you just cascade your advantages into more advantages. Now as we know solo queue doesn't work that way and people throw away their advantages all the goddamn time. But it doesn't seem to happen to my allies as much as I would like it to. [01:03:39] Speaker A: I mean really, just what it comes down to is bonus damage on every time you hit. Any turret is so much stronger than 3% of your 80 and AP before 40 minutes. Like yeah, if everyone hits full build, if you have a 45 minute banger, those dragon buffs start to matter at that point. Most games are decided 25 minutes before then. And grubs giving you turrets helps you win the game. All right, you need to be a. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Dedicated late game team to care about dragons more. [01:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah, if you're playing Kael Veigar, I don't know, Jinx, something like that. Some stupid comp like a, your draft sucks, but B, if you can get the Dragons, take the Dragons. Because you shouldn't get fucking anything with a draft like that. I'm not wrong. [01:04:35] Speaker D: It's right. You're right. [01:04:36] Speaker B: Got a point. [01:04:38] Speaker A: All right, last question from Sebastian is what role do you think is the hardest to play? And I'm gonna add. And why? Because just naming a role is boring. [01:04:50] Speaker B: I will say jungle because there is more to that game than any other game. You have to play every lane. Essentially. You have to track your opponent. You are the one who is responsible for objectives. You are the one who is essentially you are playing chess whilst also playing league. [01:05:12] Speaker D: You're playing speed chess. [01:05:16] Speaker A: You're playing speed chess and babysitter job. [01:05:21] Speaker D: You're being a support while playing of your job. [01:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. A significant portion of your job as the jungler is massaging the egos of your dumb fuck teammates so they don't intentionally lose you the game. [01:05:33] Speaker B: If you're talking pure mechanically, I would say top lane. Because top lane is the designated 1v1 land. [01:05:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:41] Speaker C: You're talking mechanically. I would say 2v1 with the jungle. [01:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're talking pure mechanically, I would say either mid or ad carry because that's where the most mechanically intensive champions exist. Straight up. With top lane having a special note of Riven exists and Ambesa exists. [01:05:59] Speaker D: Yeah. And then Kalista exists. As a counterpoint, you basically have. [01:06:05] Speaker A: I just mean like those two are the outliers where they are mechanically intensive in top lane. Whereas like, yeah, a third to half of the mid lane pool and a third to half of the ad carry pool are mechanically intensive. [01:06:18] Speaker D: So ad carries all have the mechanically intensive of orb walking. Like that's just a thing that you need to do on ad carry to be successful, period. It's just like it is a mechanic that all of them use and then a bunch of them have extra stuff on top of that. Like the poser child for it is Draven. Like catching the axes is a nightmare. [01:06:44] Speaker A: Not just catching the axes, but knowing when to spam his W between every axe catch and when not to. Because you have to manage your mana. [01:06:52] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:06:53] Speaker A: Knowing when not to catch the axe because you'll get hit by something if you do and you can instead recast your Q to keep your axes going. Like there's so much just minutiae of details of in the moment that you have to make decisions. On top of being able to move your character and attack and all the other normal shit. [01:07:11] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:07:12] Speaker B: Being able to juggle four axes. It's possible. [01:07:14] Speaker D: Yes, it is. And it's a nightmare. Yeah. So ad carry is the most intensive role, but the hardest to play is jungle. [01:07:22] Speaker B: Like you are playing multiple games at once. [01:07:26] Speaker D: Because if you want to ad carry in the jungle, just play kindred and. And congratulations. 980 carry in the jungle. [01:07:32] Speaker B: Yes. A lot of Your line is PvE but like you're also doing so much more consistently because you don't have to constantly look at the other team. [01:07:44] Speaker D: That reminded me that jungle is the hardest to play because it has so many skills that none of the laners do. None of the laners has to know how to clear camps. None of the laners have to know how objectives work. The number of people I have seen get just bodied by Rift Herald because they don't know how his punch works. The number of people I've seen get bodied by Otacon because they don't know how his abilities work. [01:08:09] Speaker A: Like and Otacon at least has the excuse of being new. But Rift Herald has been around for years. How have you not been auto filled enough to have learned how he works by now? [01:08:16] Speaker D: Yep. Yep. Yeah. All of this is just like those. [01:08:21] Speaker A: To be clear, the people in me and Crush's games should not be new players. [01:08:25] Speaker D: Well, I've been leveling a new account so there's some excuse there. [01:08:29] Speaker A: But those people get an excuse. [01:08:31] Speaker D: Yes, they're fine. Yeah, I. I have. My bar is very low. Anyway. The but yeah is jungle. I don't think it's even close. The only person. The only other role that comes close is probably support. Maybe ad carry because of how little agency they have over the game. [01:08:51] Speaker A: It's ad carry and mid are the mechanically intensive ones. But mechanically intensive is not the same as hard to play. [01:08:59] Speaker B: Yes, actually that's true. If you're talking about just. Just champions. There's a champion every role that's going to be markedly difficult to play. Roles. Roles are specifically what do you need to know how to play? What do you need to know how to do? [01:09:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:09:21] Speaker B: And nothing compares to what the jungle needs. [01:09:24] Speaker D: Top is the easiest. You right click on the enemy and then you right click the tower pillow. [01:09:29] Speaker A: You've been strangely quiet here. You want to refute Crush. [01:09:33] Speaker C: I mean you can't really deny that like he's not lying until you start adding in like wave management. If you're going against someone that knows how to wave manage your lane, you're. And you don't know how to like turn that back into your favor. Your laning's pretty much over from that point. And then that's when you're hoping that you have a jungle that knows how to recognize that and an answer. So I mean that just falls back to another job of the jungle is noticing what lane states. Your solo laners are in the one. [01:10:06] Speaker B: Lane that pretty much doesn't have to deal with that amount of lane management is mid because it's such a short lane that you don't really have the ability to stop it. [01:10:15] Speaker C: You don't want to. [01:10:16] Speaker A: You could freeze a wave or two but there's not much benefit to do so compared to the others. [01:10:21] Speaker B: And it changed how many person out of experience range. They changed how minions wave push so you can't even do it for a substantial amount of time at all. [01:10:31] Speaker A: I just mean there's no point in top and bot. You can freeze and zone someone off experience. [01:10:35] Speaker D: Yep. [01:10:36] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [01:10:36] Speaker A: It's near impossible to do that in mid. Like it can be done but it's. It's fucking hard to do do. [01:10:41] Speaker B: It's basically under your tower there. [01:10:44] Speaker C: My opinion is going to be the same as your guys as I think jungle is the hardest. Just because there's more that you have to know about the game. You need to know how every lane works, not just how the jungle works. Because if you you need to know what your teammates are thinking and what the enemy enemies are thinking at the same time just by looking at the lane and know exactly what state it is. Whether it's going to be a healthy gank state or. I need to stay away from their state though. [01:11:13] Speaker A: Fair enough. But Pillow, you've missed the easy out. That could have just made your role actually the hardest because top lane is clearly the hardest roll because you have to go against Lucian and he just auto attacks you, murders your turret and wins the game through your lane. [01:11:28] Speaker C: Get all six grubs. [01:11:30] Speaker D: And Lucian top definitely gets all six grubs. [01:11:33] Speaker B: God, he does. [01:11:35] Speaker A: Guys, this has been episode 470 of the Four Words podcast. I've been Jack Soman for Mike, for Pillow and for Crush youh have a great night. [01:11:46] Speaker C: Good night. [01:11:46] Speaker B: Good night everybody. [01:11:47] Speaker D: Bye. 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 [email protected] so we can answer them live on the show. That's the four Wards podcast at gmail com.