Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards podcast.
Hey, what's up?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven, Jerks and Velcas.
And you're listening to the Four Wards podcast here to help you move forward in league.
Hello and welcome to episode 480 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Sohman, and I've got with me two other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Mike of many names.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: Hello. Hello, hello.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: And we've got Codex Ninja.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Hi.
Hello.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: There we go.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Okay, sorry.
Maybe Discord's unhappy with me today.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: It's okay. We'll blame Discord.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Guys, we are the Four Words podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come talk to us, hang out, play games, play arena or Aram or just normal drafts or whatever people want to play.
It's a great time. The link is in the episode description and we look forward to seeing you there.
We also do stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV Jacksonman, where it's still a mix of League of Legends and Super Metroid.
Mike can be found at Twitch tv mikeofmanynames. Are you streaming anything specific? More Sekiro, maybe?
[00:01:43] Speaker C: I was gonna do some Sekiro, maybe some Elden Ring, though. Doom is coming soon, so it's probably gonna be Doom.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Doom. The Dark Ages that. Like Medieval Doom.
[00:01:52] Speaker C: I've loved the most recent dooms that have come out. The soundtrack's been amazing. I can't wait to play this new one.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Fair enough. And we're still trying to bully Codex into streaming. It hasn't happened yet.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: No.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: All right, guys, we got some shout outs to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet and Robegon for supporting us at the shoutout tier. Thank you, guys. You literally keep the hosting going.
Now, if you want to support the podcast, head over to patreon.com theforwardspodcast $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, or in the case of this week's episode, us reminiscing about old computers for 20 minutes.
And $10 a month will get you that feed and also a shout out at the top of every major episode.
Every main episode, rather. That's the word I was looking for.
All right, listeners, it's time for disappointed dad Jacks. Again, because none of you wrote in, we need questions.
Send your questions to theforwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show.
I'm not gonna judge your spelling or grammar if you're making phone typos and autocorrect makes things a little stupid. I'll figure it out. It's fine. Just ask us the questions so we can answer them again. That's theforwardspodcastmail.com.
all right, so we have a theme for tonight's episode, which is death and dismemberment.
That's right. We're going to talk about deaths, reviewing why you died and how you died and whether there's such a thing as good or bad deaths and all of the above. We're going to talk about.in League of Legends today.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: Let's face it, all of us do it a lot.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: And it's good to know. Even if you don't want to do the relentless reviewing, it's a good thing to know immediately after you die. Did I do something right there or did I do something wrong? And we're gonna go over some basics on how you can figure that out.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say not only do all of us do it a lot, all of us do it almost every game. I have played thousands of games of League of Legends since they introduced challenges, and only 87 of them did. I have no deaths and at least 30% kill participation out of thousands upon thousands of games.
We all die in League of Legends.
So we're going to be discussing, first of all, why should you look at your deaths?
What are some things that should cause you to evaluate it? And the first and obvious one is just, are you dying a lot like more than other people in your games?
I love that's, that's the first part of important context, is if in your games everyone dies at least 10 times.
If you also die about 10 times, that may not be a lot. That may just be a very bloody game. Could you have died less? Yes.
But there may or may not be specific takeaways in a high action, high blood game like that. But if everyone's dying 10 times and you died 17 times, you're the outlier. Why are you dying so much more than everyone else?
And if everyone's dying four times and you're dying 10 times again, you're the outlier.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: So here's it. So that's a good metric to figure out if you've been dying too much in your games, if you have died half as much as the time of the game. So if it's been a 25 minute game and you've died 12 times.
That is too many deaths.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:46] Speaker C: It does not matter what the deaths are for.
That amount is too much.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: This metric only works up to about the 30 minute mark because death timers get so long after that that it's basically impossible to keep up that rate.
Like it, you could actually die on cooldown and still look better than a death every two minutes.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: Fair. It pretty much takes 40 minute games for that to be a thing. But yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: So I guess the, the.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Like that, that's, that's a, that's a baseline. If you are in that situation, you need to stop and review because something in your play is wrong.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess the question then becomes like, all right, so we're dying a lot. We've seen a pattern. We are dying significantly more than either team members or something like that.
So all right, sure. It's harder to die every two minutes when death timers are like 60 seconds plus as you get later.
How many times do you die before the 15 minute mark? Like 14. Like plates fall. Right. Halfway mid game. Ish. Right.
How many deaths are you allowed in your opinion?
Good game, bad game, whatever.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: In laning phase, I'm gonna give this as the qualifier of remember I play in gold plat elo.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: If you're dying more than three times before plates fall, you are fucking up in that elo. In that context of games, there is.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: One scenario I would say that's Bronze.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Games where almost everyone has five plus deaths at that point.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: If you're in those games and you also have five deaths, it doesn't necessarily mean you fucked up. It means people in those games are fighting to the death and you're getting dragged into it.
[00:07:44] Speaker C: So we're going to put a qualifier here on this.
Don't judge your total deaths on time.
Even still based on what rank you're in. Sometimes you're just in bloody games.
Judge your deaths total based on the time and all the deaths around you. If your deaths are relatively equal to the enemy's deaths now, you're in an okay situation. You guys are fading a bit too much maybe, but you're at least giving as good as you get. If you are 050 and the enemy is maybe one death from the other land, there is a problem.
There is also the scenario where one person is dying significantly more for other people.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: This is a rare occurrence. It does happen, especially as a support in a jungler. People will die for other people.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:08:36] Speaker C: So if you are sacrificing yourself so that someone Else can live.
Also maybe take a look at what their kill score line is. So if you are a support, that's 058 at 15 minutes and your AD carry has seven kills and your jungler has three, maybe you're doing fine. You're just making sure that the people who have the gold aren't dying.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yep. And also you will have the assists to show for that in those situations.
The other situation I can think of that you could generally consider to be like oh it's okay that I died here is like if you're playing anyone who has heavy CC and the person on your team who has a thousand gold shutdown is running away and you go in and are like take me instead and you're worth 200 gold. 300 gold.
That's usually a good trade.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So the. The biggest immediate thing is there's. There's something that we all talk about it. It's not frequently talked about by us, but it's kda.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:43] Speaker C: We aren't usually considered KDA chasers.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: This isn't something that all of us look at. But it's a great metric to figure out if you're doing things well if your KDA is on the higher end. So if you have more kills plus assists then deaths, you're generally speaking you're selling yourself well. If you're relatively even around the one or two mark, that's still pretty good. It means you're at least accomplishing something with your deaths. If you have sub 1 KDA, that means you have died more than you have done anything with.
There are problems. You need to now find out what those problems are.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: So in kind of the. Because we talked a little bit about like role specific like how you know, to be honest, it's kind of okay for the support to sell themselves for a double kill. A lot of time you are trading up in gold. You are not worth that much. Whereas again if your carrier, your jungler is getting that like absolutely worth. Right.
So the one other like specific case in ADC where it's really okay to just like let it go. And I wouldn't go so far as to say int but I would call it like limit testing. With special like careful consideration.
You've got a double stacked wave. There are like 14 minions behind you and you're shoving it under tower. You kill double kill or at least kill the carry in. In that situation you've absolutely denied them 300 gold.
All that XP all. All of that. That is absolutely worth. But it's One of those invisible things where it'll happen where you'll die trying to kill someone under tower. Like you'll go for a tower dive. It goes wildly inconsistent because tower diving with Yi is complicated. Right.
So.
But ultimately you don't get punished for it and you don't know why. A lot of times it's because the ad carry on. The other side died. They didn't get the XP and gold or they got you and that's it. But you don't get an abysceral punishment because the wave is already shoved and it's coming back to you.
Right.
So again, there's a couple invisible levers, especially on ADC where. Nah, dude, it's okay. They died at the right time. You died. It's not great to hand over 300 gold, but you accomplish the mission like. Yeah.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yep. The other thing I think a lot of. Okay, I'm gonna speak from jungle perspective for a moment.
I see so many junglers commit suicide in an attempt to steal an objective that does not matter.
If it's not oh really, like Soul or Baron, just let him fucking have it. It's not worth your life. Generally like a single dragon does not give enough stats. Like the 300 gold or more that you're worth for the kill is worth as much or more than the dragon itself.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: So question on that.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: If you steal it, you go even.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: What happens if.
All right, you have two dragons, they are trying to take the third.
For some whatever reason, your team ain't with you. You are selling your life for it to coin flip.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Is it worth then?
[00:13:22] Speaker B: No. Unless the game is already in a state that you think the game is unwinnable.
If you do not steal that objective, it's not worth throwing yourself away. And this gets more extreme the longer the game goes.
[00:13:36] Speaker C: Here's where Jax and I differ here. There's a point of where selling your life I think is totally worth.
And that is one.
Are you actually capable of doing smite steals? If you're not even capable of doing it, don't even try.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah, if you're not playing a jungler that can burst the objective plus smite, just don't fucking bother. You need to be able to take it from whatever it's at to below smite threshold and smite it without them being able to react to your damage in the intervening time frame.
[00:14:06] Speaker C: So there are very good champions for this. Kha' Zix is very good for this. A lot of the damage dealing assassins are very good for this. There's a Couple of tanks that have a percent health thing built in. They're very good at this as well. Maokai is an example of this. Sejuani.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Yep. These are people especially because his is instant.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: They can do that burst and then smite.
The ultimate is Nunu.
He's the one person. Yeah.
Uh, but like if you are.
There's no other objectives on the board.
Things are pushed away. You are going in alone and you tell the people you're going in alone.
And it's sole point for you. You're denying them a chance of stopping you. Jumping in there to sell your life to get that smite steel. That's a good death.
They have nothing else they can take from you.
You are like, you've made sure it's not barren time. It's. It's pretty barren.
There's no like pushed up wave that can't immediately shove you up. You need to evaluate the deaths, which is why we're talking about evaluating deaths here.
I usually do these things at this point where I will like I know where I think is a good death. I'm gonna sell my soul here. I'm gonna die here.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: And Mike will confirm. I yell at him a lot because him and I do disagree on when it is worth selling yourself for an objective.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And so I'm. I am unusually good at getting smite steals. I get more of them than I miss.
So that is also another big factor. I know I can usually get the smite because I've seen 70% of the time I'll get it.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: I will say I'm way more willing to go for smite steals when I'm playing a champion who has a real shot at getting out afterwards.
If you can do, for example, Zack jumping over the pit and smiting as you pass over and landing back to safety on the other side.
Which is the funniest smite steal you'll ever see.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: I've done it twice.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Go for it.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:18] Speaker B: If you're playing a ranged champion that can just throw a spell to try to steal it like a Lux Ult, there's not a real big downside to just throwing it and trying. What's the worst can happen? You don't steal it and oh no, Nothing happened. Your 32nd Cooldown ultimate on Lux is on cooldown for a few seconds. Like the risk is low. So those are worth taking the risk.
But do be mindful of where you walk up to do it because a lot of times if they have control of the area, they will jump you when you do this and then kill you the other time that I'm more willing to go for smite steals is if I'm playing someone like Kane, who can go for the smite. Steal. Smite, Steal it immediately, hop into someone's body and then pop back out and go over the wall again.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: So there's one specific thing I will always say if you are on the blue side for trying to steal dragons, if you have control of that pop blossom. Yeah. If you have control of that pop blossom and you have a jump ability, it's worth it to try because you can pop over, sit the smite, and then jump back out immediately.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: It does depend on how much hard instant cast cc.
[00:17:31] Speaker C: Yeah. If they don't have quick cc, usually you can get out pretty quickly. Usually. If they have Annie, if they have Pantheon, it's a little riskier.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: On that note, if they have Warwick Mordekaiser, Skarner Malzahar, or whoever the other person is that has suppression that I'm not thinking of right now.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Ambessa.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Does Ambessa have a suppression?
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Yeah, on her old. Yep, there's actually a suppression on there.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Okay, so suppression is the important qualifier there. It is a different type of CC than like a stun or something.
You can't smite while you're suppressed.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Yep.
You can't cleanse either as a carry. I know this very well.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Don't bother going for smite steal Death's risk if they have a Malzahar, because the Malzahar will ult you. You will not be allowed to smite. So you will never get that steal and you will always die.
Those deaths are never worth it. If they have a Malzahar or one of those other champions, just don't do it. The death is likely to happen and it is unlikely to be worth your while.
That is an important qualifier because like other Snap cc, like Annie, Pantheon, Lissandra, you can still get that smite off and die. You can evaluate whether that death is worth it or not. But you're going in with the understanding this is a one way trip.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Whereas if they have Malzahar, Mordekaiser, etc.
You go in. It's a one way trip and there was no hope.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Most of the time when we're talking about these, this is presumed death. You're going in there to sell your life to get something you are expecting to die.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: So, you know, we've talked a lot about like jungle support, adc, at least a little bit. What about Top Lane? Like what. What is a.
Like I Don't know. It's a brutal lane.
Like no. Deaths seems to be the important qualifier to me.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: So with top lane, whether or not it's a good death comes down to a lot of wave management more than anything else. If you can trade yourself one for one but they lose a full wave to turret, that's a good death in top lane. Because top lane is so snowbally. It is a 1v1 binary matchup. The experience difference you create because you got their wave and then they didn't get the wave that they're supposed to get because they were dead during it and it died deter it.
That can create such a disparity that the next time you just kill them and walk away because you're a level up top.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: Top champions are so wildly different in what they can do when they can do it. That minion gold and XP matters more to them than almost anything else. Including deaths.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:20:34] Speaker C: So you'll frequently. This is why ending Scion has been a thing for a very long time is because you can pretty much guarantee to get that XP and gold and get something else out of your death. Usually. Usually plates or towers. We don't recommend it because you're not. You're not. What's his name?
[00:20:53] Speaker B: I want to explain why this is a top lane thing and not mid and bot. Part of it is the champions, like Mike said. The other part of it is mid is a short lane. So it's harder to use the advantage of experience. You got to shut out the other guy, which is what this allows you to do.
And bot lane, because the experience is split, it's less of a total experience gap between the two sides.
And because there's two people, it's much harder to prevent the other side from being able to get experience.
Yeah, it does still happen. And if you can create a situation with your deaths in bot lane where you die, but you create a situation where you're so far ahead off of those deaths that you can now just be like, cool. The wave is at my tower and you don't get to come in experience range anymore because I'll kill you if you do.
Cool. That's just as good as it is in top lane. It's just a lot harder to do in bot lane.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: I haven't. I have a different good example for top lane and it's a specific champion.
It's. It's volibear.
There's volibear power in top lane in which is you can die four or five times in the lane. Don't but you can die four or five times in lane. Once you hit your item break, you are now a power threat.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: So there are some champions where there's just a time limit.
Once that time limit is reached, suddenly you are useful. And so being denied dying too much halts that power spike, but it's not stopping it.
The goal, the goal in lanes like that is do not let them get there or be so far ahead when they get there that you can shut them out.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Okay, so we've talked a lot about, like, what makes a good death, like, quantifying it.
Now let's talk about how should you go about figuring out whether you're dying good or bad.
Let's start with obviously, like, the answer is replays. Look at replays of your games or especially if you have a recording of your game so you can see, like your actual perspective and mouse movements.
Like, if you're streaming or recording your gameplay, those are even better.
So you want to go back and review past games because that's how you identify patterns in your behavior that can be worked on.
What are some barriers to doing that beyond just setting up recording software? If you want to see your own perspective or clicking download on the replay in your match history and watching it.
[00:23:45] Speaker C: Time the biggest one, A lot of people only come on, play a couple games and walk off. If you don't have time to do this, this review, and you don't want to set aside time because really all you're doing here is coming on to play and have some fun with some friends, that's okay.
My advice then is if you're playing with any friends, ask, talk.
Hey, I feel like I'm doing something a little off. Anything you can do to help me? Does it look like I'm doing something wrong? Just talk.
If you're listening to the podcast, come in, talk to us. If you want to play a couple games with us, we'll gladly play some games with you and we'll do this.
We'll talk with you.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: We'll.
[00:24:33] Speaker C: We'll look things over. We'll just, hey, yeah, it's fun.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:37] Speaker C: If it's just barrier, yeah, we're good.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Another thing is, is it doesn't have to be this big, long thing. I have literally with this crew, like, gone. Like, hey, you know that Dragonfly like, dude, that felt awful.
Like, can we look at that real quick? Cause I record my games, right? It's just an automatic recordy thing. Just pull it up, go look at it.
I just felt really uncomfortable in this and I couldn't really tell if, again, Mike was selling his life or if it was a good death or a bad death. I don't know. I felt like I was just holding. What am I supposed to do?
You can communicate with people and see what they were thinking at the time, and it just helps your gameplay to figure out whether or not, like, oh, yeah, I really. You know what? You're right. Mike is currently 15 and 0 as a Hwei. Like, he gigantic. Like, sure, he's going in. Whereas, like, you know, I'm an 06 kaizen. I was just not feeling it right.
Like, yeah.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: It can also be a great way to review. Did I overlook something?
I've absolutely had deaths where I die because I definitely had vision of someone walking into a bush and then they killed or the ward expired, either one. And I didn't realize it because I wasn't paying attention. And then I face check the bush and get my ass beat.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: And you can watch that replay and you can go, oh, I saw these two people walk into this bush on the minimap.
And then the ward disappeared.
Why the fuck did I walk into that bush?
[00:26:15] Speaker C: We, as league players have problems with object permanence.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: It's hard to keep track of everything. Yo, I'm trying to click.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Well, you can also use it to your advantage. I'm just saying there's a reason champions like Twitch are so effective at stomping in lower elo. Because it's really hard to remember.
Huh? Annie and Brom are charging at me and trying to fight. I bet Twitch is probably also there, even though I can't see him.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
You have no idea how much the object permanence thing, the Twitch just suddenly, oh, yeah, we do have a Twitch playing in this game. Oh, crap. I'm dead.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: The other big one is someone died in another lane, and now they're in a different lane.
They came back somewhere else.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: There's nothing you can do about that. They died. The game announces that death happened. Everyone knows precisely when it happened. If they show up somewhere else, that's. That's not on you anymore.
But you should know when people die and when they respawn, because you never know where they're going.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: I don't know. So the only other thing I wanted to mention about, like, like, like, challenges to reviewing deaths. So for me, I'm a carry. Like, I'm not supposed to die. At least not much. Right. Like, generally speaking, we are supposed to be, like, face to. Like, 1.1millimeter away from the meat Grinder the entire fucking time, never die and still doing damage like. Like, that is. That is ad carry life, yo.
So it feels bad. It feels bad to review. There are times where Blitzcraig pulls a fully geared up set directly into my face as a kai' sa who's correctly positioned away from set. And like, man, it just feels bad to review those deaths. It feels bad to, like, review deaths even in general.
So, like, the one thing I would say is like has been a huge challenge and strategies I've used to get around it is tilt. Like, I don't. I cannot effectively review deaths when I am tilted out of my mind, when I am so angry that I indulge in uncharitable fantasies about that person. Right?
[00:28:45] Speaker C: That is also when you know that your deaths are now being too much. If you can recognize your own tilt, you recognize that you're. You're probably dying too much. You're pushing too far away. You no longer care as much that now you know. Yep, I've been tilted here.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: So. And. And so the one big strategy that I've had, especially when. When I have kind of like a tilt, because tilt comes in seasons too, like where you get kind of more mad at the game than not mad at the game, right?
And in. In times of seasons of tilt, I do find that, like, doing it like, like going for a walk, like, like getting like actual physical, you know, like, like getting the blood flow, you just get separated from it in a way that just feels better.
One other thing that I have done is that I review next day. So if I get like, just have just. Just an 03 block and I'm just, just done with League of Legends. Just review it the next day. And again, like, a lot of this is time. Like, you gotta have like a lot of time to kind of do this. But again, this is some really good software that just like pulls up like exactly when you die. You can just like click, click, click, just kind of look very quickly. Ah, yeah, no, I disrespected Annie Yar. I knew she was gonna be level six and I absolutely disrespected the fact she had slash R.
I have a.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: Great time for people to start reviewing things and this is something that we probably should do more. And think about it.
When you need to dodge a game because something in that champion select just, nope, someone's being trolley. You don't like what people have been talking about. You saw something and you went, I need to report this and get out of here.
Do your dodge. That's A great time to do it.
A review. You've got five minutes where nothing's going down.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Mm, yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker C: You got five minutes to do a review.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: It can be good stream content too. You just have to actually remember to do it. Which is what I'm bad about. Because usually when I have to dodge, I'm like, well, I dodged time to boot up whatever. I'm playing on my switch for five minutes.
[00:31:03] Speaker C: Yeah. That's also another thing. Like it. Especially if the dodge was tilting you. It's. It's a. It's a good time to look at something else for five minutes.
But if you were just like, nah, I'm not gonna do that.
Try and keep in the game a league.
Great time to do it for you.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: Absolutely. So other than downtime between games like that, how else is effective ways to review your deaths?
Oh, I like the note we have in here of.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: So this is your evaluation of the death short.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Yep. So I actually, this is one other tool that I've used to try and again.
So one of the things I have a tendency to do is to, like, punish myself, like, really needlessly. Oh, I'm a bad person.
I died.
Right. And it's like, I mean, there are a lot of factors that go into it. Even just like, I got upset or anxious, like, oh, my God. And I just flop my flood.
Like, dude, it happens, yo. Like, I don't need to be challengor here. Like, nah.
But at the same time, one of those things is, like, I get very, very down on myself. Like, oh, my clicks are shit. There's no way I could get gold. There's no way.
Because my clicks are shit. And so, like, it gets in this bad spiral of, like, clicks could be better. But, like, so one thing I've done, keep it extremely short. One sentence. So I should not have ulted into the dragonpit as Kai' sa. I should have e forward, engaged the fight from a safe distance, and then used my ult later. Which I know is kind of a long sentence, but it's. It's very. It's. It's much more. I am a horrible person that will never use Kaise's r correctly because I'm a dumb dumb.
Like, this is not helpful.
There's no way to improve, like, when you're treating yourself like that. Right.
Like, so keeping it more clinical of, like, I should do this instead.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, I agree.
So the other thing that I think is important to take into account is you're gonna die.
Just don't be so hard on yourself.
Stop, stop.
Stop being so hard on yourself. You die in every game. It's normal.
You're just trying to evaluate which ones were a mistake that maybe was not something you could have caught in time and which ones are, oh, you did something dumb.
Because you're gonna do both in every game.
[00:33:59] Speaker C: You are going to get outplayed. It will happen.
They're not your fault. Sometimes the opponent is just better.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Let me put it this way. Faker gets outplayed in every game he plays. It happens.
He is literally the best player in the world for the last 12 years and he gets outplayed every game you've ever watched. A faker, he has been outplayed at some point during even the ones that they have dominant wins in.
Four time world champion.
[00:34:37] Speaker C: Speaking of this entire thing that does remind me of another good death.
And this is. I call this the faker effect.
And that is you are now the most valuable person on the team.
People are trying to kill you.
Yeah, Lead them in circles.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: I'm sorry.
[00:34:56] Speaker C: I've been a 12 and ogre running after you.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:35:01] Speaker C: You can. You can win games because everyone goes, I need to kill him.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:35:04] Speaker C: I need to kill him.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: That carry does not get unkillable, Demon King. We are going to take that carry down.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Yup. I need to correct myself. He has five world championships. I said the wrong number.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Oh, man. The fan base is killing you.
[00:35:24] Speaker B: And even he gets outplayed. So don't be hard on yourself when the opponent genuinely outplays you.
Just don't.
But when you face check into the bush, you should have known people were in.
Maybe figure out why you didn't notice.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Maybe we should figure out why.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: Why when you outplay yourself and you will out, that's the important thing. You will outplay yourself as well. You will make stupid fucking mistakes.
Everyone does it.
[00:35:55] Speaker C: Walks into a bush and just dies.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: It's not common, but it does happen.
So don't beat yourself up. Just learn from the fuck ups. Learn from the mistakes.
That's how you get better.
All right, shall we get to our trinket tip? Is that enough talking about death?
[00:36:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, let's go to the trinket tip.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Well, I mean this. This trinket tip is about death too, so. Nah, dude, the theme lives kind of death theme.
[00:36:26] Speaker C: Part of it is.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: So we're talking about Niko for a moment in our trinket tip because Niko has a lot of weird interactions with her ability to turn into stuff.
If Niko turns into a cannon minion and then starts tanking turret as a cannon minion, she gets the cannon minions defense against turrets.
So, like, when Niko takes damage, she has her real health bar that takes the damage, and then she has the display health bar of whatever she's turned into.
I don't mean the cannon minion will display damage taken as if it was really a canon minion. I mean, Niko actually takes less damage as if she were a cannon minion.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: For all intents and purposes, she is a cannon minion with her own health bar.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Wait a minute. Cannon minion has more defense than she does against turrets.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Cannon minions take massively reduced damage from turrets.
That's why they take like seven shots to die. If they're just solo, getting shot by.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: Turrets makes a lot of sense.
Again, slows slows it down. Okay.
[00:37:36] Speaker C: This also means if the turret is in the enhanced damage mode, if she transforms into that minion, she's now taking reduced damage again. She's taking minion damage.
She counts as a minion for every hit that would have hit her.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: It's really silly. This became a trinket tip. I added it a few weeks ago because I saw this in a pro game in the LEC where I need go pulled turret aggro and then turned into a cannon minion and stood there and just took turret shots like she was fucking Alistair with his ult running. And I was just like, what the hell is going on? Cause I had no idea it worked that way.
[00:38:14] Speaker C: She took like nine turret shots in a, like, three man dive as, like.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: A level five Niko.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: It was wacky, so that's very cool. It's niche, but it's cool. But it gets sillier.
A lot of champion skillshots won't hit minions such as Ashe Ultimate, Jynx Ultimate. There's a bunch of others.
If Neeko turns into a minion, those abilities will pass right through her because they don't collide with minions.
[00:38:49] Speaker C: Mm. If they explode and don't hurt minions, they don't hurt her.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yep. And if they literally can only detonate if they hit a champion, she's not a champion when she turns into a minion, so they don't detonate. They literally fly right through her harmlessly.
And do be mindful of this, because you can definitely fuck over your backline by not tanguing the shot.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Sometimes you don't want to be task that Nika remains in champion form to to Dink the new new Snowball. Please, please, dear God. Dink the new new snowball for me.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: What I'm thinking of is, like, if you're trying to body block Jynx Ult because your jungler's dead, but your team is doing Baron. Yo, you should be in Neeko form or a different champion form to body block that Ult.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Or better, that counts as you.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. The clone actually would count.
Can you have the clone out? Like, I've never played her. Can you have the clone out and then you turn into a minion? Or does the clone also morph once.
[00:39:58] Speaker C: The clone is out? It does what it does.
[00:40:00] Speaker A: It does what it does. Okay.
[00:40:02] Speaker C: It pretends it's you so it goes off and does you stuff. And then you can become something else.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: So we have one more aspect to all of this Niko shenanigans.
[00:40:15] Speaker C: It's not all positive.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Yes. Because if Niko is a minion or a monster, Smite will do full damage to her, as if she is a minion or a monster.
So a jungler can smite you for 1200 true damage if you're a monster and you're Niko.
[00:40:34] Speaker C: This was in the same game?
[00:40:36] Speaker B: This was in the same game? Yes. Niko just abruptly died and I was like, where the fuck did that burst come from? And we figured out he smote her and she took 1200 damage from the smite, which was literally half of her health.
[00:40:51] Speaker C: 1200 plus the initial hit from Nocturne, plus his auto attack. Instant death.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Literally hundred to zero in like two frames. You could not possibly react to it.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: Do not transform into that chicken unless you know he is not going to smite that chicken.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Yes.
That's the key, is it is very dangerous to be near Junglers while transformed into a minion or monster.
Because if they know you, they can smite you for shitloads of damage.
[00:41:20] Speaker C: This is much more dangerous if you're a support because you have way less health.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Yep. And you're probably not building health items either.
Alright.
So yeah, those are our Neko trinket tips. They're very fun and silly, but also those are meaningful Niko strats both for and against. So if you're playing against a Neeko and you see her as a minion or monster, smite her ass.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: Mm.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: Shit's fucking hilarious.
I guarantee there's a high likelihood they don't know it works that way and will be like, what the fuck did you do to me?
[00:41:57] Speaker C: I just died. I don't know how.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: All right, let's do some listener questions.
Because even though none of y' all wrote in this week. Cough cough the fourwards. PodcastMail.com, write your questions please.
We have some leftovers from last week, so you guys aren't in full chaos mode yet.
Don't let us get there.
Our first set of questions. Let's see. Let's go in here because I'm realizing as we did the pre show, I don't think the crossed off is correct.
Yeah, we need to remove this one. We answered Dota fans last week so we're going to a questions from Orcheron.
I think it's Orcian or Carrion. Okay, we're going with Orcarian. If that's not how your name is pronounced, I'm sorry, we're making our best guess.
Or Carion writes hi Wards. Since you're always needing questions, I thought I'd send some in. I've been playing for about three years now. I've never played a ranked game and have no idea what my rank would be.
Which is fine.
[00:43:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Question one On Summoner's Rift, I generally play Lissandra. I like lists because I can be useful later in the game even when I lose Lane, which happens pretty frequently. I want your opinion on a strategy I use to try to mitigate my weakness in lane. I take Demolish and Mana Flow with Flash and Teleport and then play the usual malignance build. I originally tried to be less squishy in lane, but the main reason I like it is if the opposing mid laner roams, I do a lot of damage to their tower.
Unless the jungler is really on top of it, I can usually take the tower on their second roam in Swift play. Do you think I should keep doing this or am I giving up too much damage by not taking Electrocute or some other damage dealing rune? Or should I actually build Tank to match my runes? Should I be more nuanced with it and only do it in certain matchups?
[00:43:43] Speaker C: One so build Tank.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: My first question is is this you're saying you're playing aftershock Lissandra, which used to be a thing and currently is less of a thing because they nerfed aftershock for non tanks.
[00:44:00] Speaker C: Yeah, we're not entirely sure what your main rune is here because if your.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Main rune is Comet, Lissandra Hit confirms Comet with basically every spell she does. It's acceptable to just run Comet and then take Demolish as your second.
Like I have no problem with that. I think that's a perfectly valid build, especially if you're going like the traditional Malignance build anyway, you're still gonna have decent poke damage cuz Comet and then you just have Demolish as a secondary rune. And then presumably you would take the, the one that reduces like the first three hits. I can't remember the name of.
[00:44:41] Speaker C: Yeah, bone plating I think.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Bone plating. Yeah.
And you're just taking it to be be able to trade a little better. And that's totally valid in basically any matchup that's an acceptable choice to make.
[00:44:53] Speaker C: So write in whatever your keystone is so we can try and figure this out a little bit better for you. Yeah, we like if you go blue and then have aftershock and fun playing, that's fine.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: So.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: I use like a stat website for this kind of stuff occasionally. Not like you don't have to use stat websites. Whatever.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: I will say that can be useful tools.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: They can be useful. They give you kind of like a sniff test. Like it like sniff test. You know what I mean? So if your keystone is green aftershock. Oddly enough my stat site says like sure.
It's very rarely taken though. A lot of folks take comment. Like a bunch of people take comment.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: And then a lot of people do take Electrocute and that one's like it looks like more people actually take Alexa Coupe. But my stat site says eh on it.
But again like yo, it's just a sniff test, that kind of thing. So I don't know.
I do not play mages. So huge grain of salt. The only thing when I read this question that I personally feel that I had problems with when I was really starting to get good at the game is is damage. Like yo, we play a fighting game. We do not play. This is not chess. Okay. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying like oh, towers or whatever.
I do feel there's a part of your growth and development stage where you gotta be killing people and you gotta be dying and killing people like a lot and getting really into that part of the game.
And I just, I don't know like the way that the question is phrased you feel like hesitant to like nah, dude, I'll roll in the bud with you. Like I'm like get good at that.
But at the same time like I don't. I don't see anything in here that is like helich troll. So like meh, I do think Comet would probably be better but eh.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: So to put this in context, I am a hundred and sixty thousand mastery Lissandra. I play the champion a lot.
If you're taking Comet you are committing more for Poke because basically you're just going, I'm just gonna Q. And when it Q hits you, you're gonna eat a Comet as well.
If you're taking Electrocute, that is for all in. That is for I am going to root you and ult you and blow you the fuck up.
Comet's a better Laning rune generally.
And especially with the Malignance build.
You're not building to be able to personally be the 100 to zeroing people. You'd take Ludens if you were going for that because it's just more burst damage.
[00:47:39] Speaker C: That's also why you're seeing that be so much spikier as a rune with Electrocute is because you're getting into the I'm going to fight as opposed to the I'm playing farther back, which isn't quite into Lissandra's playstyle.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:47:54] Speaker C: Which is why Comet is a little bit better for her.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: So I actually like. I like the I'm gonna take Comet and then I'm gonna go into Demolish as a, like pivot because Comet's just good. And the secondary runes, like the minor runes in Domination, the only one that doesn't completely suck is Ultimate Hunter.
The other runes all suck ass on Lissandra.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Like, they're really bad.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: They all suck. Like, she doesn't have a really good rune, I feel like.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: And that's why I think Electrocute winds up being so Feast or Famine is you either are ahead enough to blow people up, in which case Electrocute helps you win more.
And the fact that all your other runes suck just doesn't matter.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Or you're not and you lose.
Comet gives you a good middle ground of when you're ahead. You can still bully people and blow them up because you're ahead.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: When you're behind, you can poke people and have more useful runes that give you ability Haste or extra poke damage with Scorch or just scaling AP to make you scary late.
And you have manaflow bands. So you can actually, actually have mana for the entire fucking game.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: Which is a big deal.
[00:49:17] Speaker C: So, like the initial part of this question, this point where you're like, I lose lane a lot.
Lissandra isn't a lane bully.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Yep. She can bully some champions, but she's not built to bully all champions.
[00:49:30] Speaker C: You're not going to get better at that weakness if you continue to do Lissandra. Mostly you'll. You'll finesse Lissandra, but you won't learn most lanes because most lanes are going to be negatively in your favor. They're going to be against you.
So if you want to build better, like laning and being a more aggressive laner and want to try and win more lanes, you might want to expand the champion pool and get another champion in there.
But if you just want to get better at Lissandra, then, I mean, the first time we talked about, yeah, we want to switch your rune up, you seem to like malignants, and getting more of the ults is a very strong, powerful Lissandra. The next thing is you're not gonna build tank. You're gonna be building probably a little bit more utilitarian, less explosive damage. So your goal is like this. This Lissandra, now that you're not winning your lane, is to be the most annoying motherfucker on the field.
Zhonya is real potent on that Lissandra.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: Zhonya's is real good on her. And there is a ton of value on Lissandra of just going, oh, they have a fed diver. I'm just gonna fuck him over when he tries to kill my teammates every time.
And that's my entire job now.
And especially if other ones do magic damage, you have that malignancy that shreds their Mr. So your teammates do more damage.
This is a good case for choosing, instead of going void staff, going crypt bloom, so that when that idiot tries to dive your carries and you ultimately dies, you heal your car, that kind of stuff, because that's. That's how you want to play it with Lissandra.
When you're not playing, like, lane dominant, I'm gonna 100 to 0 explode your face.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: So the only other. The final. The final one chip that I will put in just. And again, this is from a Carrie's perspective.
You know, if you have the time, if it's like in your wheel wagon, take a look at, like, the specific lane matchup that you're going up against. You're going up against an Ahri. And again, don't know the mage matchups too well, but let's assume Ahri dominates Lissandra. Just easy peasy lemon squeezy. Okay, so it's against you. You know, can you come out zero deaths and even cs, can you do that? Like, right. That is. That theoretically could be a win.
Right?
[00:51:59] Speaker C: So.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: So getting it really into the details on, like, specific matches that you're encountering can slowly, over time, grow your knowledge of the champion to be able to. Again, maybe you're losing Lane at 0 deaths. 10Cs up.
You know what I mean? You're gonna Start mitigating way better.
[00:52:21] Speaker C: But yeah, so you also said you play swift play mostly, which is. That's not the game that we play. The game is different in swift play.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:30] Speaker C: So a lot. A lot of swift play is fundamentally a different game than ranked. It doesn't play the same.
You're going to want to. Like, before you even attempt to do ranked, you're going to want to go in there and you're going to want to play just draft. Because draft plays differently than Swift play.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Yep.
So let's. Let's move on to the next question because I think that kind of ties into that.
Question 2 from I mostly play Arams when playing alone because I have a hard time dealing with the toxicity even in normal games.
Aram is relaxed enough that I can handle it. Over the last year or so since vanguard came in, but then even more since riot changed the honor system, it feels to me like the toxicity in Aram is less than it used to be. And this season I've been playing swiftplay, which I like a lot. And it doesn't seem nearly as bad as the normal games a few years ago. Have you guys noticed the same thing or is swiftplay just more relaxed or am I just adjusting to the nastiness?
[00:53:34] Speaker C: I can't tell. I hate Swift play. I've played it twice. I can't stand it.
[00:53:38] Speaker B: Really?
[00:53:40] Speaker C: Do you guys still like it?
I can't stand it.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: I. Okay.
[00:53:46] Speaker C: Feels wrong.
The timings are all off. The money is all off.
Everything about the game that I have been playing for 15 years is wrong.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:54:01] Speaker A: So, okay, so this is one thing I'll throw in there. So again, a placares. Right. So we have to spend like 25 to 30 minutes waiting to get to be part of the game. Swift flame is great. Blake, Harry's.
[00:54:16] Speaker C: Oh, man.
[00:54:17] Speaker A: It's just good eats, man. I get three items by like 15 or 20 minutes. It's great.
Oh, it's just so nice.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: As the one of us who plays swiftplay, then is Swift play more relaxed? Are people actually less toxic than swift play?
[00:54:32] Speaker A: So, okay, I don't think I've. So I play with chat offs. So already, like, I've already cut off like 80% of the toxicity.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Okay. But you can still experience things like someone following you around and fighting you for farm because they're mad at you.
[00:54:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that kind of thing. I have seen people like the soft inting like, very obviously we're no longer like, playing the game. But what's weird about it is that, like, because the Game games are so much shorter. It's just like, it's just so much more chill. It's as if it was Aram on Summoner's Rift with more money. For me, like, I just feel that it's, it's so much more concise and that kind of thing at the same time. I, I play it like an Aram where it's like, dude, I don't, I don't care about this lp. I'm trying, I tried AP Misfortune because I, I just, I don't, I don't want to spend a full 45 minutes trying out AP misfortune. Right? Like, I know it's probably not viable, but I really wanted to see what it was like as a support.
Because the thing is, every once in a while I get an AP Misfortune support and I was just like, girlfriend, why ain't you auto attacking? Nothing like your auto attack slap.
And so I suddenly realized that her Q is like no damage on the AP build.
Another thing is that her auto. It's not to say that her auto attacks do zero damage, but they just, they don't.
They definitely are not what I experience when I play ad traditional marksman misfortune. So I have this, this, this, this concept in my mind of like, oh man, those goddamn support misfortunes are just so like dumb. They're just so dumb and like actually trying it out and seeing the difference without having to spend a 45 minute game trying this out. Nah, dude, it was just super cool and we lost. Like, I meant like, I'm not gonna say that I full on trolled it, but like I gave it my good all played for 25 minutes and like, okay, good. Like, yeah, I learned something. Okay. Okay.
And yes, there is soft. There is a lot of soft inting. But I didn't feel, I didn't see like the high level.
I will say I haven't seen a lot of toxicity in Aram though, because I'm not saying I play a ton of Aramis, but mostly saltiness.
Saltiness. Like I'm saltiness. Yes, but not like full on.
You nasty. Like I call them finger painters. You nasty finger painter. You.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: Definitely have seen about the same number of slurs in Aram as I have in ranked.
That's the bar that I describe it at. But again, I play with chat on. You don't.
[00:57:15] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, that's true.
[00:57:17] Speaker C: Jack. Jack. Jack's plays significantly more of one than the other. I play the inverse. I play a lot more Aram than I do normals and I play more.
[00:57:27] Speaker B: Arams than I used to because of the furries.
[00:57:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
Way more ranked than you do a Rams and I play way more arms than you ranked. I have found that of the amount of Aram games that I play, I think Jax is just a cursed person and that everything seems to flow towards him because if I'm not in the games with them, it. He can say nothing, he can do nothing. He can be in a great position and suddenly things will just start.
There will be random people who just suddenly slur for no reason that we can find.
It just happens in games where Jax is there. He's cursed.
[00:58:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:09] Speaker C: Because it. It's. It's nowhere near like I see salt. I see a lot of salt in Arams. I don't see as much toxicity.
[00:58:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Toxicity being as a separate like aspect.
Yeah.
[00:58:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
N.
I realize I am not the barometer to judge this by because I am just genuinely fucking cursed.
But I don't know. I've seen a lot of people saying all kinds of wild fucking slurs in Aram. All chat like people are just fucking wild. I don't understand. This is why I don't recommend playing with chat on. By the way, I am a thick skinned 39 year old man who is streaming and using the chat as a way to entertain my stream.
So like when someone says something out of pocket, I can be like oh fuck, we're getting that guy banned. And like it's entertainment for my chat to be like wow, what the fuck? Jack's got another psycho.
So like I have an incentive to leave chat on you don't turn that shit off.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: Oh. The only, the only last note I would just want to put here is like if you're. If you, if you need a buddy to come onto Summoner's Rift, like non swift play like slow, slow game just want, you know, forwards Podcast Discord. We will play norms with you. We will review key moments if you wish.
It'd be great.
[00:59:43] Speaker B: Absolutely. Link is in the episode description. Come join the Discord.
Of course we're gonna, we're gonna save the rest of Orkarion's questions for next week because none of you wrote in questions this week. So we gotta stretch this shit out and make it last.
Write into theforwards podcastmail.com or join the Discord and drop your questions in the questions channel. Either one is fine. We have a couple of those lined up once we get through or Carry On's questions.
I was considering not giving you guys a Lucian top because you didn't write in any questions this week.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah, but you know, I'm going to come in with the, you know, unless you're Lucian Top, he doesn't need to write in questions because he is a question.
[01:00:33] Speaker B: Okay, that's. That's what we're ending on.
I'm here for that.
This has been episode 480. I might rename this from our tentative title.
[01:00:45] Speaker A: Oh, I love Devin Dispen.
[01:00:51] Speaker B: We'll see. We'll see how I feel in a few hours when I edit this.
I've been Jack Soman for Mike of many names for Codex Ninja. Have a great night.
[01:01:02] Speaker C: Good night, everybody.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Bye.
[01:01:09] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our Patreon at patreon.com theforwardspodcast. And of course, send your questions to theforwardspodcast at gmail. Com so we can answer them live on the show. That's theforwardspodcast at gmail. Com.
