[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, what's up? It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven Jerks and Velkoz and you're listening to the Four Wards podcast here to help you move forward in League.
Hello and welcome to episode 495 of the Four Wards podcast.
I'm your host, Jack Sohlman 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 there.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: And we've got Pillow Pet.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Hi, I'm still around.
I will see you guys, what, probably another six months after this. Good to see everybody.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: It's only been like three weeks.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: I know.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: I'm just better. You better not go that long between episodes.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Work has been just killing me. I'm trying to put in some extra work to make some extra money, get some things moving along. If you're a patron you would hear, but you know, if you're not, then you get to miss out on the fun stories.
[00:01:20] Speaker C: So yeah, no context for you.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Robogone, Skippy as Esquire and Labana for supporting us on Patreon at the Shout out tier. Thank you guys. We are on
[email protected] theforwardspodcast if you decide to support us. $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you that exclusive feed. That Pillow mentioned with all the behind the scenes audio of our prep work or whatever stories, whatever's going on in our lives, random bullshit, whatever it happens to be that week. $10 a month will get you the exclusive feed and you'll get a shout out at the top of the episode.
We do have a discord. Come join the discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. Link is in the episode description. Several of us stream on Twitch. Ike can be found at Twitch TV Jacksoman, where it's still a mix of Super Metroid Map, Rando and Getting trolled and ranked.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Not for long.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Mike can be.
Yeah, it'll be Silksong in like a week and a half, but that's fine.
Mike can be found at Twitch TV mikeofmanynames, where I bet he's also going to be streaming Silksong in a week and a half.
[00:02:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it's probable.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: And Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch TV Pillowpet whenever he has time to stream.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Speaking of other games, guys, we have a new general gaming podcast. If you have not gotten enough of Mike of many names Pillow Pet and Jack Zoman talking about League. You can hear us talk about other video games too. The first episode is out now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It's called from 8bit to 4k. And we are going to talk about whatever games we feel like talking about quite literally from retro games that are 40 years old to brand new releases. Whatever the hell we feel like.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Yeah, this podcast is a little bit more freeform than four words is. It's less about trying to educate you and more about like we're going to. We're going to pick something random that we're going to talk about in gaming that we either want to talk about or have been meaning to discuss and just go with it. We may go off on tangents and get off on other things. It's. It's a very different sort of podcast but I. I hope you guys will like it. It was a great time to. Great time to record.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: I was going to add in that like during the pre show like I'm the king of derailment and getting off on topics in this podcast. It is just shown like it is so easy for us to just go off and talk and get on our own. Like Mike said, tangents about other things. So yep, go give it a listen.
It's a good time. It's long, good for your commutes. Check it out.
[00:03:57] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's gonna be probably roughly twice the length of an average forwards episode and it's. You. You can tell what we are passionate about there and it. It's going to hopefully, hopefully be a little bit of a longer term thing that we got going. I'm excited to see where we're going as we continue to do more episodes.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Sorry, sorry. I was just going to say we only have a list of like 700 topics ready to discuss.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: Oh God.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
For now we are doing it bi weekly every other week and like I said just. I'll have a link in the episode description or you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Wherever. Just to. From 8bit to 4k is the name of it. We'll have a logo and theme music soon. We are working on it.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: Do not forget the. From that will like drastically hinder finding it.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Yes, from 8bit to 4k. All right. Last but not least listeners, we did not get any new questions from you guys on the discord or on the email.
You're lucky that we have enough of a backlog that we still have enough for a Q and A section. But we need more questions so Write in to theforwardspodcastmail.com or in the Discord go to the question submission channel and send us your questions so we can answer them on the podcast.
Alright, we got all of the bookkeeping stuff taken care of guys. We got a listener provided a star topic tonight. Thank you imsquid for the topic suggestion. We're gonna talk about neutral objectives because we are fed up with teams just choosing not to contest the elder Dragon that you kind of have to contest or the game ends and choosing to contest the enemy team getting first dragon when it doesn't matter because you're 30 minutes into the game and only three dragons have been taken.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: We've definitely talked about.
Yeah, we've talked about neutral objectives many times.
However, neutral objectives have changed many times and it is one of Riot's favorite things to change.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Yup.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: But how to take them and when to take them hasn't changed terribly much.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: So since they've changed the least, let's talk about dragons. First, the first dragon spawns five minutes into the game. It'll be a random dragon. Second dragon will be a random type. Third dragon will, when it spawns will change or. No, when the second dragon dies, it will change the rift based on what the third dragon will be. Every subsequent dragon until Sol is acquired will then be whatever the third dragon is.
So if your third dragon is Ocean Dragon, you get Ocean Rift immediately when the second dragon is killed.
And every dragon will be ocean until a team gets soul and then every dragon is elder after soul, which means.
[00:06:49] Speaker C: That one team can have four ocean dragons and another can have one and the other two. So you can, you can kill Ocean Dragon five times in this scenario?
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Yep. Because it is impossible to have more than seven non elder dragons in a game because at six, both teams are three dragons a piece and then the seventh one has to give someone soul. So let's talk about real quick. That's when they spawn and how the spawning works. When should you take a dragon?
[00:07:18] Speaker C: There's two philosophies to this one that I've noticed. There is we want dragons and there is we don't care about dragons. And these are teamfight scenarios. But it also is incredibly jungler dependent because some junglers can take a dragon on their own very quickly, some cannot. And these sort of dictate just your first dragon because the first dragon spawns before any other objectives on the map outside of the crabs, which don't count.
So that first dragon is ever so slightly before grubs and it being ever so slightly before grubs. That means that depending on how you pathed and what jungler you have, you can sneak an early dragon. It's not advisable under most scenarios to sneak an early dragon because you can very easily get yourself into a very bad situation and get get killed.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Especially if that dragon is ocean. Because if the first dragon is ocean, you are basically perma slowed while taking that dragon, which means anyone can walk up and kill you at the dragon because you literally just can't reach them.
Any range champion, rather.
[00:08:34] Speaker C: Yeah, but there are a couple of champions who are very good at killing a dragon on their own. Kha' zix is one of the main examples of this. He is a jungler who excels at single target and dragons don't deal enough damage for him to be threatened.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Nunu's another one for largely the same reason. He has his consume. He does tons of single target damage and just isn't threatened by the dragon's damage to me. So those are champions.
Yeah, go ahead.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: I'll say. I've always felt like Warwick's just always been the best at taking almost any camp solo just because of how overpowered his passive is or his objective solo. Granted that's changed a lot since like the Baron changes. But with dragon for sure, like he can take, he can solo any dragon.
[00:09:21] Speaker C: Yeah, he can solo any of them. That's not the issue here. The issue is the speed at which they solo it. And he's a little bit slower because he doesn't really gain any benefits until the halfway point. He still gains the extra damage on his Q, obviously.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Okay, if you are playing Warwick and you are soloing a dragon, you need to go in with two smites and use the first one immediately. Yes, because Warwick is shit for the first 50% of the dragon and then he's one of the fastest takes on the second half.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Yeah, there are very few people who have a faster end Clear again, Kha' zix probably being one of them.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Maybe, I'm not actually sure. From 50 to 0. I think Warwick is just straight up the fastest. From 50 to 0.
[00:10:01] Speaker C: If he takes his Q, he is still the fastest because it also does execute damage. But you're unlikely to have Level 6.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Done execute damage in many years. Mike.
[00:10:12] Speaker C: It does bonus damage when low health, does it not?
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Keep going. I'm looking up Kha' zix to give you a confirmation. No, it does not.
[00:10:19] Speaker C: Oh, they took that away from me.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: The evolved bonus, when the target is Isolated. The cooldown is reduced.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: Oh, it's just. They give the actual. So it's like a.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: It has been that way for years. I could not tell you how many years, but it has been that way for years.
[00:10:33] Speaker C: Well, much like how I don't remember our friend of the top lane's passive because it's been forever. I forget Kha' Zix because I've been playing him since he came out in season two.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Ultimately though, I would say it's not advisable to take these camps solo if you don't have to.
[00:10:49] Speaker C: Yeah, these are risks.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Risky moves.
[00:10:53] Speaker C: So to do this, you need to make sure that you have.
You need to be paying attention to the lanes. You need to have a rough idea of where the enemy jungler is. And you need to have some vision around you, whether that's just a ward in the. In the bush below you to keep an eye on and bot lane roaming over or a ward behind the pit so that you can check and see if someone's going to be jumping over. You need something to give you some extra vision and you need a champion who can solo this.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Mike, do you want to know what patch removed the bonus damage on the evolved Q for Kha'? Zix.
[00:11:29] Speaker C: Is this also gonna be like patch six two.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: November 10, 2016.
[00:11:37] Speaker C: Okay, I wasn't that far off. Patch six, like 15, 6, 22.
Jeez.
Well, I slightly beat Lucian from last time.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: True God.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: It shows how long it has also been since kha' Zix was a great jungler. I still play him sometimes, but like he's nowhere near as premier as he was back then.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Yeah, he's fun though.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: He's very fun.
But yeah, so that, that is the. I'm going to solo a dragon.
There is another scenario in which it is okay to take a dragon early. And that is a condition that each sort of team is agreeing to. And that is you get one thing, I get the other. So one person is going up and taking grubs. We'll take the dragon or vice versa.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: And we'll talk about grubs in a minute.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: Here you see, they're taking the one. You've waited the extra minute for that to spawn. Okay, fine, I'll take the other. Because one or both of you do not want an early fight.
And so you would rather just.
Alright, I can't stop you from getting it. Let's get something on the other side. Those are the two main scenarios that you'll see a first dragon go down in.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Yeah, the, the best case if you're wanting to stack dragons is to be able to get it before the grub spawn so you can then also contest grubs. But yes, it's okay also if the enemy has a high prio early game jungler to just wait and wait for the eight minute mark and then trade and make sure you get the dragon if you're looking to dragon stack.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: Yeah, most people who do early game champions preferably take grubs over dragons unless they are planning on getting both and do that early grab because early game teams would rather have the extra tower damage so that they are pushing their advantage. Whereas late game teams care more about dragon stacking because that compounds power on power on power.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: I'd say another good thing to look at when you're trying to decide if the dragon is worth it is what power are you getting from that particular dragon.
That being said, like you know, chemtech does shield power, cloud does movement speed and slow resist Hextech is ability haste, attack speed, so on so forth.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: So on that note, why this matters is Hextech dragon gives it a ton of immediate power because it just gives 5% attack speed and 5 ability haste. Whereas Infernal Dragon which also just gives raw offense gives a multiplier on your AD and AP. Early game you don't have much AD and AP so where 5% attack speed if you've built no attack speed is 5% more auto attack damage.
3% AD if you've built no AD is not 3% more auto attack damage because there's other effects in auto attacks than just your raw ad.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: Yes. So like the other. The other thing that we're pointing out here is that each dragon's individual power the first two dragons are individual dragons. So sometimes you just don't care about them because you'd rather care about the stacking from the third dragon onward.
And sometimes you just say fine, you take those first dragons, we'll grab something else. Because an individual dragon's power for the most part isn't that powerful in general. It's like a grand total of 800 gold worth of stats.
There's slight variations.
The.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: The the Hextech dragon is probably the most valuable since it gives everyone 375 gold worth of stats each. And that assumes you can use both attack speed and ability haste which there's only a handful of champions that truly care about both.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: Yeah. So like an individual dragon isn't that great. The souls that each dragon gives, they have done a very good job of making all of them Worthwhile now. Every dragon soul is actually potent in its own right. There are better scenarios for each dragon soul. Some people care more about one over the other. But all of them are powerful now.
And stacking multiples of every dragon is very good. There is only one scenario that I can think of in which one dragon stacked is not useful and that is if your team doesn't have anybody who uses the healed and shield power from Chemcel from Chem Dragons. And Chem Soul makes up for that by being a flat damage reduction below low health.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: And it also does give tenacity. So that would also require the enemy team to not have any tenacity able hard CC for it to not be valuable.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: It is the single most niche of them. But the soul still matters.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: I'd say my favorite fully stacked dragon this is just, you know, out of the blue is the Ocean Dragon because of the HP5 it gives you at a fully stacked is you can't beat it.
[00:16:44] Speaker C: Getting four ocean dragons and a soul is disgusting.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: You heal so much. It's actually dumb.
It feels almost warmogs esque at that point.
[00:16:54] Speaker C: My personal favorite is hextech Dragon, partially because I think Hacksoul is the most potent soul and partially because I really like hextech Rift.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: My personal favorite is hextech Dragon because I just like attacking faster and casting more often.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: I love the lightning Chain. There's no actual.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't care past that. I just like doing shit more often. I like high ability haste. I like high attack speed. It feels fun.
Okay, that's enough talking about the regular dragons. Let's talk about grubs. Grubs spawn at eight minutes. There's three of them. If you kill two, you get the objective credit towards feats of strength. If you kill all three, your team begins spawning a void mite when it hits turrets. Each stack of grubs applies a true damage burn on turrets. Whenever you hit turrets for the rest.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: Of the game, depending on your team, it's very potent.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: I feel like grubs is a lot easier and this is coming top. Top lane mentality is a lot easier decision to make on to go for or not. Because you know, typically as a top laner you're going to have someone that's pushed up most of the time and someone that's not. You know, there's always going to be a strong side or weak side. There's never usually going to be neutral.
So it's pretty easy as a top laner or even as a jungle to Be like, okay, my top laner is ahead.
That's a pretty easy like, okay, I'm going to go for that objective. My top laner can come help me or I can just make do it solo because I don't have to worry about the enemy top laner roaming down because they're under their tower. It's. I feel like it's a lot harder to do that in the bottom lane because you got to worry about support and sometimes a mid lane and grubs. You don't. I, in my history of playing, I don't see a whole lot of mid laners rotate to grubs. Occasionally they do, but I see them leaning more towards a bot lane room than they do the top lane rooms.
That's just out of my like experience.
But they do roam. But it's, it's a lot easier and less scary to take the top lane objectives compared to the bot lane.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: So this is one where we're going to have to do a little bit of a preface here.
If you watch pro, their world is not our world. What happens to them for grubs is not always true for us. They put very high priority on grubs as a whole. So you will frequently see full team fights over grubs.
This is rare to see an entire team fighting for grubs in a solo queue game.
You will occasionally see the top lane, mid lane jungler and maybe a support will roam up. But you will see skirmishes over grubs. You are not likely to see full team fights.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why I didn't even like bother mentioning it because it's so rare on occasion. I mean, yeah, I've seen team fights for like eight minutes over grubs. Like go back and forth, back and forth, go back and forth, back and forth. And then all of a sudden you're down 60Cs because you decided to keep fighting for grubs.
It's a rare occasion. But yeah, Mike's absolutely correct. Like back before the lane swapping was really a big thing, you know, that was popular for a while. You put your top lane or bot lane in the top lane to make sure they were there for grubs. Luckily that's not a thing anymore.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: Sort of. Well, okay. The pro scenario is they flip the ad, carry up to top lane and leave the support in the top lane around bot.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: No, no.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Yep. The. The thing I think matters most for grubs in our context outside of pro is assuming a lane is not just straight up giga crushed grubs is the best predictor of who is going to get the tower.
[00:20:41] Speaker C: Feat of strength there are. There are two main predictors of it. Grubs is one and if it makes it that long and a tower has not popped down, Harold is another.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: So let's transition to talking about Rift Herald then. That's the next objective on the list.
So Rift Herald, big tanky thing spawns at 15 minutes.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: I think 14 minutes.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: 15 minutes somewhere around there.
[00:21:04] Speaker C: It's just after the tower plates go down. So 15 I believe.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: I believe it's at 15 minutes. I am looking that up right now to confirm.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: But while plates fall at 14 I believe it's a full minute after. Yeah.
So. So Herald, it does a little bit more damage than it used to. They buffed its damage. But any jungler at all who can play the game can solo A herald, it can take a little bit because you're doing negligible damage to the herald for the most part until you hit the eye and then it takes huge chunks at a time.
So a Herald take is like 30 seconds worth of a fight.
There are usually two outcomes to our herald fight.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: I can confirm it is 15 minutes that it spawns.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Herald is usually. Either there is a fight over Herald or someone gives Herald and the other team tries to say, well let's get something else.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: That's I think the big key to think about with Herald. An average Herald does about half a turret's worth of health.
Your average is one charge. If there's already a turret below half health, it's probable that if you're able to find a spot where there are already multiple defenders, you can get a second charge and it's worth about one full turret. If you know the enemy team is taking herald and you have people able to just free hit a turret down, there's no plates at this point. If you can just take half a turret to a whole turret, you've done the same thing Harald would do anyway in the time it took them to take Harold.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Yeah. So the, the key to a Herald is how you use a Herald.
If you are not getting a tower out of Herald you got 50 gold and the enemy team gets 50 gold if they kill it.
So you need to make a Herald worthwhile if you're going to take a Herald.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: If you think you can defend against a Herald and while they're taking herald you can take a tower. It's almost always worth it.
The real key to a herald use is that second to third dragon fight wherever the fighting time happens.
Because sometimes Dragons spawn a little early and they stay up for four or five minutes. And sometimes it's just a little bit late or you've been taking them on cooldown real quickly. So it's usually that second to third dragon fight where you can throw a Herald down in mid or top lane and then go to that fight and someone must respond to that Herald or a tower is going down. Oh, it's minimum.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: It's better.
Often if, let's say your team got at least one of the dragons, you look at that third dragon and you go, neither team's anywhere near soul. We don't give a shit. You go top lane while the enemy team is going to group for that dragon and you just throw Herald down with a group of people and take two to three turrets. That is the peak Herald play. When you can make that happen. Herald is always the best objective, but that requires the enemy not having people ready to answer because they went to go contest at dragon instead. And it requires your teammates to not suicide at the dragon because this is solo queue. And people think, oh, dragon spawned, it's time to go walk in there and fight.
[00:24:22] Speaker C: Yeah, so. So like Herald is a potential huge multiplier on your current gold if used properly. And this is probably one of those. The person on the team who has a earlier game team cares more about Harold than the dragon team, but the dragon team cares about Harold because it helps them get more dragons.
So Herald and Herald isn't a relatively easy objective to get.
It just takes time.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: By the time it spawns, every jungler can trivially solo it if left alone.
[00:24:59] Speaker C: Yeah, it's all about the time on Herald.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Okay. The next objective that spawns in the game is Otacon. And I think Otacon is heavily misunderstood. So I want to spend a little time actual talking about Otacon. Otacon will spawn either in the top side or bottom side of the river next to that lane, depending on which lane had more violence in the course of the first 14 minutes of the game.
[00:25:24] Speaker C: Yeah, at that. At that 14 minutes, there will be his arena will spawn in either the bottom or the top. So you always know where Otacon is spawning by 14 minutes.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Yep. So when Otacon spawns, he does a lot of damage. This is the first of the neutral monsters that actually does fuck tons of damage if you try to fight him without help.
Most junglers cannot safely solo Otacon when he spawns. I say safely because most junglers can technically solo it. If you're certain you'll be Uninterrupted. Unmolested for a minute while you kill it.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: Yeah. It will take you a full minute or more because no jungler is safe doing it while just face tanking it.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Otacon shreds your armor and magic resist, which means if anyone shows up to fight you, you are at an inherent disadvantage. About a 2,000 gold worth of armor and magic resist debuff disadvantage, which is brutal.
[00:26:31] Speaker C: If not for Baron itself, otacon would be the single most like this thing can throw a game.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:26:39] Speaker C: But Baron. Baron has that. That inherent holdover because of people fighting over Baron.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yep. And here's the thing. All you get for killing otacon is all of the petals that have not already been picked up on the map. And then all of your petals are 25% better. If you've ever moused over the petal buff in a game where you're getting, let's say, 30 petals or so, you're getting like 25ish adaptive force, which is like 25ap or like 16ad. It's not a ton. You're also getting experience, and it's harder to quantify that.
But that's not a buff that's worth throwing a team fight for. Is the. The takeaway here. It also then does give you a buff, where for every takedown you get for the rest of the game, you gain one petal and you do a little aoe slow on takedowns. It's hard to quantify the value of that too.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: I'll say. Like, in my so far experience since this spirit blossom event, I haven't noticed the Attican death thing actually doing anything. Like, I don't even notice it.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: It's one of those effects that 95% of the time does literally nothing, and 5% of the time, it wins a fight that you otherwise wouldn't have won.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: There. There is one more thing, and that There is a small buff that activates each time you get a kill. So it's. It's called the Spiritual Purification Buff. It's relatively small. It essentially amounts to another paddle. Otacon is weird like that about the.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: The slow and the gaining a stack. I did not realize it does damage, though, as well.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a small little zone. It's.
Each time you get, like, little itty bitty zone. Yeah.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: It's like a gin trap going off.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Nowhere near as potent as that, but so. So otakon is not a bad buff to have. And otacon, like oticon pedals, amount to a Surprising amount of gold.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: Yes. So because remember, that's like 25 AD or 16 or 25 AP or 1680 per person. You have five people on your team.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: Yeah. So you get, Generally speaking, about 2,000 gold worth of stats across the team.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: I know your early petals are worth a lot more than the past. Like, once you get to like petal 15, 16 and 20 ish, you get huge drop off and diminishing returns. Like your first five petals are worth a long sword in value and an amp tome in value. Just your first five petals and then it just starts to drop off. You get huge diminishing returns from there.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: And that's kind of one thing I wanted to touch on when talking about Attacon is especially if you are on the losing team, making sure you are able to grab as many petals off the map as possible before otacon is taken. Because if you're on the losing team, there's a good chance that your team is not the one getting otacon. But literally, just every petal you take before otacon is taken is denying a petal from the team that takes otacon, making their otacon buff weaker and closing the gap between you and them.
[00:29:56] Speaker C: If you see a petal and you can take it without putting yourself in a deadly situation, take the damn petal.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:05] Speaker C: I have seen so many people walk past petals and then back for no fucking reason. There are petals. These give you permanent stat buffs and xp and you're denying it from the enemy.
Take the fucking petal, especially if it's one of the three pronged petals, because it counts for three petals.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: About out of can will ever be as satisfying as the one last season that gave you a bazillion petals when it dropped and you got to click every single one of them. Nothing will ever feel that satisfying.
[00:30:42] Speaker C: It felt like that felt wonderful up until you died and then the enemy picked up all your petals.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:30:49] Speaker C: But yeah, otacon is. Is the most dangerous buff to just randomly take because it's. It is a very large set of AOEs that drastically hinder your team and does a lot of damage.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Yo, Especially. Okay, while we're talking about out of con, if you are a ranged champion, do not stand still when the swirly swipeys come out. Walk through them.
[00:31:18] Speaker C: Either back out of them or be in it under the boss.
Those are your two options.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: If you're in literal, like point blank melee range under the boss, you'll take one hit. If you walk away through them, you will take one Hit. If you stand still, you'll take two to four hits, depending on your exact positioning. It hurts. You can literally lose half your health as a squishy major ad. Carry by just standing in the wrong pixel to where you take the full four hits and just standing there and eating the whole thing. Don't do it. Just walk through it. So you only take one hit. One hit is weatherable. It's like 200 damage.
[00:31:55] Speaker C: Dodge the damn balls.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: That too. Do not stand in a line with whoever's tanking it and the boss so that you don't get hit by the balls. When they move to dodge the balls, be mindful of where they've moved to, and don't stand in the new line.
[00:32:07] Speaker C: These two things, apart from the fact that this is at 20 minutes, are the reason why your jungler doesn't solo this. They can't sit there and tank them. They will take most of their health unless they are one of three fucking champions. There are pretty much three champions who can sit there and take it, and most of them can't take it quickly.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yep. I'm thinking of, like, Volibear Warwick. Who's the third?
[00:32:35] Speaker C: Oh, I just had him up.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Xin Zhao.
[00:32:39] Speaker C: I think it's Xin Zhao. Because you sit there and you heal. And you heal. You heal.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Are we. I think we're sleeping on Bel'veth. I'm pretty sure Bel'veth's pretty good at taking atticant, too. Bel's fast, is taking decently, but she's.
[00:32:51] Speaker C: Incredibly dangerous at taking it because she sits there in ease and. And that shreds her.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yep. She also just. She doesn't have the same level of healing as the other champions I mentioned.
[00:33:02] Speaker C: Which is why Nocturne isn't on this list. Nunu doesn't do it quickly enough. He doesn't do enough damage fast enough for him to destroy Otacon. He's great at securing it, but he doesn't quickly take it, which is why he's not on this list.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: All right, anything else about Otacon? Okay, let's talk about the big game ending objectives. We're gonna start with Baron Nashor, the most iconic boss in League of Legends. He's been in the game for literally since the beginning. The giant fucking purple worm in the top void pit, Baron Nashor, spawns at 25 minutes. He does damage to at least two targets on every one of his attacks. And if you only have one person in range, he double hits that person, which makes him exceedingly dangerous and difficult to solo.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: At the beginning, yes.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Eventually, some champions will get to the point where they just heal so much it doesn't matter. But he's extremely dangerous if you only have one person trying to do it.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: When Baron spawns at that 25 minute point, much like Otacon, he is an immediate threat. He actually hurts at spawn point.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Yes. He also doesn't know which variation has different special attacks that you need to dodge.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: We're not gonna go over all of them because to go over each individual one is actually kind of pointless.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: Yep. Because the answer for all of them, no matter which the attack is dodge it. Get out of the zone. Stop standing in fire. This is. Think of it like a wow raid. Think of it as Stop standing in the fire. Fire means death. In this case, the fire is void zones or goo or whatever the fuck Nashor decides to do. Depending on which version you're fighting, I.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Would say there's three scenarios when you're why you're thinking of taking Baron, maybe four. The three that I can think off off the top of my head is you're closing out a game. You're trying to get an edge in a game. Typically you're gonna have a numbers advantage, and you can take that advantage and get an edge in the game and push your power farther. Or the third is trying to prolong the game and stop the enemy from ending the game. Like if you're at a point where, like, if the enemy gets Baron, the game's over for us. We have to try to get Baron. You can't win the game with that Baron, but you can prolong your chances, I guess would be the best way to look at it. Those are the three typical scenarios.
[00:35:35] Speaker C: The fourth one is also pretty prominent, which is Baron is a bait.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: Baron is. Baron is a big enough buff that you need to challenge for it if you can. If the enemy gives you a Baron, they're giving you minimum 3,000 gold. So minimum, you're taking 3,000 gold off the map. So usually Baron means a fight.
So that fourth scenario is we're fighting Baron to try to bring them here because we want to fight because Baron. We've actually forgotten something important about Baron.
Much like Otacon and the third dragon, Baron changes that map over there. Depending on which Baron it is, there's one Baron and one Baron only. Of the three, which retains that map. That little alcove there. There are two other versions of that Baron or of. Of Baron. One of those makes a sort of like an alcove, a corridor instead of an alcove. And so you have two side points in and then the front section in. And I forgot what the third one one's barren structure looks like.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: So one of them just shifts it. So instead of having two like wings of rock into one opening, it has openings on either side and a rock fissure in the middle. And then one of them creates the whole corridor.
[00:36:51] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. So that. That's the.
That is the types of Baron like outlook. Each of those Barons does those individual mechanics that we're talking about. Each Baron is locked to what it does. That Baron will always spawn with this map doing these things. If you want to know more, look at it more. That'll give you more precise details on which one. For the most part, outside of how the map has now changed, it really doesn't matter to how you take Baron. Apart from. Yep, the map change is the big one. Because the map change changes how you take Baron.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: The map chain changes how you fight the opponent around Baron. Because the only difference for Baron himself is one ability. And all of them still can be summarized as Stop standing in this.
[00:37:36] Speaker C: Yeah, Dodge.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: I would say like to answer like the how you take the Baron is you're typically going to usually always do it after an Ace. Like you're almost guaranteed to do it after an ace if you're.
If you're not. If you can't just end the game.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Yes. Then you're gonna be going for minions in range to threaten their base before they respawn.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: I would say base over Baron like all the time. If you typically you're going to have.
If you're gonna have like a top laner that is pretty good at taking structures like they typically don't want to be at that Baron after an Ace, they want to be pushing that lane, or a lane, I should say. And the other four or as long as your ADC is there, your jungle's there, you can usually take that Baron pretty quick. Depending on what state that ADC's in.
[00:38:28] Speaker C: Time matters a lot. At 25 minutes, Baron is a difficult objective to take.
The longer the game goes on, the easier it is for your team to pick up a Baron. Depending on your team comp in 90% of scenarios by 35 minutes, a jungler and an AD carry can take it by themselves.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: I know they recently nerfed the in combat regeneration from Baron. Am I correct? In the last they took away entirely.
[00:38:59] Speaker C: Yeah. So this is basically a response to.
In the middle of the fight with Baron, he went from 12,000 to 12,001 health. And that smite left it at one health. Which has happened multiple times in the last two years in prominent games where it mattered when the Baron was stolen. That riot has decided those were hype.
However, they were incredibly unfair to the Jungler at the time.
That team did everything they possibly could have correctly, and pure chance took it from them. So they've taken away Baron's leveling. They've taken away Baron's health regen in combat to make sure that we can't have that scenario anymore.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Yep. So did we actually talk about what Baron Buff gives you?
[00:39:49] Speaker C: No.
[00:39:50] Speaker B: So when you've killed baron, you get 1500 gold instantly spread across your teams at 300 apiece.
And you get a buff for three minutes that gives you bonus AD, bonus AP, the powerful version of the recall where it's four seconds instead of eight, and an aura that makes it so all of your nearby minions are massively tankier and do more damage.
That's why Baron is intended as a like, oh, you need to close out the game. Because suddenly it makes it so the minions are a threat to enemy structures. Again, instead of any mage being able to just instantly delete a wave whenever you get it to the turret.
[00:40:29] Speaker C: And in some cases, they're a threat to some champions as well.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Yeah, you don't want to 1v1 someone where they have Baron Buff and there's minions on both sides. Because your minions versus their minions. Their minions are going to do massively more damage to you. And remember, in a 1v1, you're both hitting each other with a single target. Both your minions are going to be attacking you, not each other. Yeah, like just straight up. Don't do it.
Don't 1v1 people in a minion wave when Baron is taken.
[00:40:55] Speaker C: So. So the. There is one scenario we have not talked about in which you should take Baron, and that is there are late game times 40, 35, 40 minutes plus when you are in a position around Baron, you have enough people near you, and on the opposite side of the map, you see the enemy Jungler or.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: Multiple enemy champions who do not have.
[00:41:18] Speaker C: Teleport, or two to three champions on the other side later. The later the game goes, the less champions matter.
So if by 50 minutes there's one person on the other side you want to bait things out, you go for that Baron.
But in any case, if you see the Jungler outside on a different lane, far away, not mid lane, because they can get there immediately, Baron is on the list. Take it.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: Absolutely.
So the remaining objective to talk about is Elder Dragon. This spawns six minutes after the last dragon was killed and starts spawning when Soul is obtained. So if a fourth dragon is attained by a team that gives them soul, six minutes after that, the first Elder will spawn. And every six minutes after that one dies will be the next one until the game ends.
Elder Dragon, all it does is give you a buff that gives you a crazy fucking execute and also a little bit of damage over time. So if you kill Elder Dragon, does.
[00:42:19] Speaker C: It no longer enhance the dragons you have?
[00:42:21] Speaker B: It hasn't for years.
[00:42:24] Speaker C: I've learned to ask this time instead of just say it.
[00:42:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll be honest, I thought it still did too.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: You guys gotta read the patch notes better. Come on.
[00:42:33] Speaker C: This is a patch note from before. We were before.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: That changed before you guys were on the show.
So Elder Dragon's buff makes you apply a burn to the target, and then if they drop below 20% max HP at any time, while you have an Elder Dragon burn on them, Elder Dragon instant kills them. This instant kill is blocked by effects such as Tryndamere Ult or Kayle Ult if she's able to put it on before the laser fires. But in the Kayl Ult case, the moment the Ult expires, if you've hit the target within the last two seconds, they'll just die anyway. It is blocked by Kindred Ult.
[00:43:12] Speaker C: I think you have to reapply something after Kayle because she is completely immune to damage during that Ult.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: Yes, but as long as you've reapplied the burn, she dies immediately afterwards. Or if she healed up above 20%.
[00:43:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: Elder is weird in that it is intended to be a game ending buff boss, but Elder is significantly less dangerous to take than even Otacon, let alone Baron.
[00:43:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Of. Of the endgame objectives, Elder is by far the easiest. It takes probably the least amount of time you can. You can shred it easily. The reason why Elder is the easiest buff to kill is because both Baron and Otacon take less damage. Baron applies a debuff that you do less damage to him. Elder just doesn't have that. He's a dragon that you can just smoke through.
[00:44:00] Speaker B: So what Elder has is for each dragon stack your team has, he gets a little bit of damage reduction and a lot of bonus damage against you. If you have soul, he gets 28% damage reduction and does 80% bonus damage. He does so little damage to most Junglers that that 80% bonus damage is often not even noticeable.
[00:44:20] Speaker C: Even though 80 carries which like the only people who can't solo the Baron are supports. Can't solo it because they're a support. They can't solo anything. And 90% of mid laners can't solo it because they don't have enough healing in their kit.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Like 70% of mid laners.
[00:44:39] Speaker C: Yeah, Mid lane has opened up a lot.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: Yeah. The point is that Elder Dragon is the objective that is supposed to encourage you to fight because Elder's not going to win the fight for you. But whichever team gets Elder is probably going to win fights for the next two and a half minutes. I say probably because if four of you die getting Elder, but you get the Elder, you ain't winning any fights.
[00:45:06] Speaker C: That last person better be 1v9ing that game.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: So I was just on the wiki just kind of reading through it.
Fun fact. Which one do you think between Baron and Elder wins a 1v1 Elder. And it's not even close because Dragon has elder has a 250 health per second regen. Baron doesn't even do damage to the Elder. That's crazy. I was just reading that.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: It's very funny. And for some reason Elder still has the health regen even though Baron does not.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: They remove 250health per second is a lot.
[00:45:43] Speaker C: It's. It's. It's a lot. Which. Which means there needs to be dps, not just damage on it.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:45:52] Speaker C: Elder is gotten in two scenarios and pretty much only two scenarios it is. We are fighting for an Elder. Someone is getting this Elder or let them have that damn Elder. We will tank and do what we can in a different scenario to try and keep us alive.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: So here's the key for that. If your team is low on wave clear and by waveclear I mean champions like Ziggs, Xerath, Lux that can actually annihilate waves from far away so that they're not getting engaged on. Because like Mundo can annihilate waves, but he has to walk up to do it. So I'm not talking about stuff like that. I mean like ranged wave deletion, Sivir and Anivia would be examples of this.
And the enemy team does not also have Baron paired with Elder. You can just wave clear and avoid fighting and Elder falls off in two and a half minutes. If you cannot contest the Elder, you are better off just wave clearing for two and a half minutes than you are trying to go for the Hail Mary fight. This is an example of like one or both of your solo laners got caught and then elders spawned and they haven't respawned yet. You have the wave clear. So concede the elder. It's fine. It's better than immediately losing the game because you went to contest it and failed. By comparison, if you do not have wave clear, if your team is largely single target for your carries melee, that kind of stuff where you cannot safely wave clear. And if you try, they can engage on you. Yeah, maybe just go take the 20% chance of winning the elder fight. Because you got a 0% chance of winning when they have the elder buff.
[00:47:33] Speaker C: Yeah, they can just crush the life out of you with an elder buff from Slow Burn. Otherwise.
There is also something we have not mentioned at all in this, which is in each scenario we have talked about every single one of them. Your jungler can just walk up and smite steal you. We're not going to be thinking about early game dragons and early game grubs. Although you can walk up and just steal a grub from someone walking in and saying my life for Ayur, I'm going in there and taking the shit is valid and most scenarios, it is worth your life to take that buff from them.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: Your singular life. That is important because if two of your other people. Yeah, if two of your teammates follow you on your suicide mission now three of you are dead and they have elder or you got elder, but three of you are dead. Doesn't matter. You have now lost the game because the two remaining people probably can't defend.
[00:48:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:30] Speaker B: If they could, you wouldn't have been in a situation where you needed a suicide mission for the elder in the first place.
[00:48:35] Speaker C: Or you have people who just absolutely refuse to fight for things and you're going, fuck it, I need to go in there. Because no one else will.
[00:48:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Also, if you're playing a champion who sucks at stealing, just don't even fucking bother. Like you're not gonna smite steal from a Kha' zix when you're playing like Maokai. Can it happen? Yeah, it's not likely.
[00:48:57] Speaker C: There are two champions.
Three if you also take into account like other lanes that are not smite stealable from. If they play the game right. You cannot smite steal from a good Nunu.
[00:49:13] Speaker B: Nunu Kalista Cho'. Gath. Nunu kalista Chogath from the jungle as well.
[00:49:18] Speaker C: So Nunu and Kha'. Zix, if they're the jungler, you can't smite steal from them if they're playing well enough like you can.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: But you should never successfully do it. They have way too much single target burst. They basically can take it from 2000.
[00:49:32] Speaker C: To dead instantly because of the changes to spellbook. If you have a spell book support or top laner or something like that, make note of that. And remember those timings for your smites, especially if you're in like a duo queue or doing clash or something.
Because then you can time your smites together and make things unstealable. And that's. That's pretty much. That's pretty much everything we have on. On the neutral objectives.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Yep. And remember, when we say unstealable, we mean should never be stolen. Not literally cannot be stolen. Obviously. Mistakes happen, miscalculations happen.
Someone being insanely giga fed and having a Lux laser at the perfect moment and it happens.
[00:50:20] Speaker C: Yes, there. There are some abilities that do more damage than smite by the late game. It's annoying, it's doable, but like they have to time it perfectly too.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: Yep. Okay, let's get at least one listener question in here. You had a trinket tip in here, but I think you talked about it when we were talking about Harold.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: I never brought it up. That's what I thought about it and I was like, oh, that'd be a good trinket tip. But if someone else did, that's.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: Tell the listeners. Maybe it's just.
I might have missed it. It was 30 minutes ago and in.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: Spirit of the topic.
So Rift herald, everybody knows you hit it on the back, it does damage to him.
I forget exactly.
It's like 12%. It's 12% of the health. So it has a cooldown of 10 seconds. The eye does every auto attack reduces that cooldown by 2 1/2 seconds. But the eye remains closed for a minimum of 3 seconds.
So auto attacks reduce the cooldown, which is nice, not spell hits.
[00:51:18] Speaker C: I believe the more people that are hitting it. So if you could have five people hitting it, it will take three seconds minimum to open a gap.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: Basically, if you are able to hit Herald three times in three seconds, it'll open its eye again in three seconds. It doesn't take much. The bar is pretty low. But it also means if you are playing like a mage jungler brand or something, weave auto attacks on the herald to reduce the cooldown on the eye. Okay, so our first listener question tonight comes from Reigns who writes with both champions being low Elo solo queue beasts in the top lane. Specifically being able to win games by themselves by being raid bosses. Why would I choose to play Nasus over Yorick or Vice Versa. We're going to pause there and answer that.
[00:52:06] Speaker C: Very simple answer to why you would pick one over the other.
[00:52:10] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:52:11] Speaker C: How long do you think this game is going to go?
Because if you think this is a shorter game, Yorick is better. If you think this game is going to four to 50 minutes. Nasus is a monster and nothing will stop him.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Here's the other part of it. Nasus is a much better team fighter than Yorickus.
[00:52:33] Speaker C: Nasus's E is one of the scariest, most powerful abilities in the right scenario.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: Tell the listeners which one the E is. They may not know.
[00:52:42] Speaker C: The E is his wither. And wither reduces attack speed and movement speed degr. It gets worse and worse the longer it goes by. Up to 90% at its max potency. It is dis. Disgustingly powerful. I'm sorry W. You're.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: Yeah, you're thinking of his W. His E is an armor shred armor.
[00:53:05] Speaker C: He is armor shred by the way.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: Up to 50% of the target's armor shredded. Which is insane.
[00:53:12] Speaker C: Both of these things are why Nasus is a better team fighter. But both of these also make him better in a lot more scenarios and top lane than Yorick is.
[00:53:21] Speaker B: So Yorick is generally better at mid game 1v1ing and taking turrets. He is such a turret threat. Nasus is eventually psycho at turrets, but he needs like 600 stacks to be psycho at turrets.
[00:53:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I will die on the hill that Nasus has got the strongest abilities in the game.
[00:53:40] Speaker B: I think so. Honestly. He's pretty high up there.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: He's just got the. The wither alone is just the has to be the most impactful ability in the game. Followed right behind Zilean which is a 99% slow at max rank.
[00:53:54] Speaker C: Like these are some of the most dangerously potent abilities in a in a laner without being hard CC and he has both of them in his kit maximum. Like that's a ridiculous amount of armor shred. And that's a ridiculous, ridiculous slow. Plus the auto attack speed slow. He. He just deletes carries by the end. He deletes everything if you let him.
[00:54:16] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:54:17] Speaker C: But you need to let him and he needs to actually take care of that farm. If you don't know how to farm properly with Nasus, you will not be anywhere near as powerful as a Yorick.
[00:54:27] Speaker B: Okay, so he continues. How do I balance the decision when low elo is decided early but not closed until late? Is it more champion Champion aptitude matchup dependent. And my answer to that is just play Nasus and low elo because no one knows how to play around. Split pushing.
So when you get to split push as Nasus, you can. He's amazing at it, but he's much better in the team fight.
[00:54:51] Speaker C: Unless you're frequently seeing games that are like 30 minutes long, Nasus is usually a better decision, period. Because he's useful in more scenarios, he becomes stronger. If you can farm.
[00:55:03] Speaker A: If you can farm even in nas where you don't get a chance. A good chance to farm as Nasus. And this is coming from experience. I'm not a great Nasus. I'm not high elo. Like, I'm what? Platinum Emerald?
Even, like in a bad game, you can have 300 stacks at 15 minutes. Like, it's. It's. It's so easy to get stacks on Nasus. They've made it so easy.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: On that note, for the love of God, if you're playing Nasus and it's a hard matchup, you don't need to rush a Trinity Force. It is okay to just not build a Sheen item or build the Sheen and then pivot to a defensive item. They're a magic damage champion. Just rush a goddamn spirit visage. If they're a physical damage champion. Build an armor item. Whatever makes the most sense. In the context of the game. Armor is a little more ambiguous.
[00:55:56] Speaker C: You are better off not spending the 900 gold early and building for the lane and getting that second or third. Because Nasus doesn't make need it to win. If all you're doing is living in the 1v1, it becomes a necessity eventually to have one of the Sheen items. But.
[00:56:17] Speaker B: And it's okay for that item to be Iceborne Gauntlet if you want to just make it into an all in one.
[00:56:23] Speaker C: Yeah. But don't. Don't tunnel into I need T Force Unless you know for a fact getting the T Force will win you the lane. Yeah.
[00:56:33] Speaker B: The main value of T Force is that it makes him a huge turret threat. At a much earlier point in the game when you have 600 stacks, T force barely matters.
[00:56:45] Speaker C: T Force is the multiplier on. I am definitely getting my Minion farm now. And if. If you were having a hard time minion farming, then it's definitely worth it to spend the 900 gold for the Sheen. You don't need to upgrade that sheen into Eternity Force until it is a time to do that.
You can move around that.
[00:57:04] Speaker B: Honestly. The same is true to a lesser degree for Yorick. He is more Trinity Force bound than Nasus is since he doesn't have infinite scaling on his Q. Yeah. If you're in a hard matchup where you're struggling, it's okay to build a defensive item first to allow yourself to farm so you can get Eternity Force.
[00:57:20] Speaker C: This is the first and only time I will ever tell you. Do not play Lucian in the top.
Nasus will eat him alive.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: Yep. Lucian speaking honestly. Not memeing. He can't stop nasus farming if the Nasus has any idea how to wave.
[00:57:39] Speaker C: Management wither shuts Lucien down entirely. And then you can walk up and kill him because there's nothing he can do.
[00:57:48] Speaker B: Yup. Okay. Let's get one more listener question in before we wrap this show up for today.
We're gonna answer1 from toast who writes what champion is your personal least favorite to play against or do you think is the most infuriating champion to play against?
[00:58:04] Speaker C: I think all three of us have one champion that we want to say. So it's disqualified. And it's Yuumi.
Yuumi doesn't count. She's horrible. Get her out of the game. No one wants her there. Next champion.
[00:58:16] Speaker B: My personal choice is Irelia. Irelia does not exist in my league of Legends.
I am not exaggerating when I say I have banned Irelia in the past 200 ranked games. I fucking hate that champion. I don't even think she's that good. But she distorts the laning phase because she is so incredibly ludicrously lane dominant to the point where bad players will snowball because they just press Q on the minions and then Q onto you and auto attack you to death. And what can you do about it? She stat checks insanely well and she heals so much. And then they're useless late. But it doesn't matter because they created a huge gold gap. And it that's that. I fucking hate Irelia. I really wish they'd rework her again. I miss old Aurelia. She was more fair.
[00:59:03] Speaker C: Mine's Akali. Because it doesn't seem to matter what the fuck you do. You can't stop her. You can be destroying the lane. 50 in lane against her. Doesn't matter. She gets one item and suddenly she's. She can fight anyone. She has the single highest burst combo in the game.
[00:59:22] Speaker A: Period.
[00:59:23] Speaker C: Until like with. With one cast of each of her spells using them once at each. That that combo is more dangerous than Vigor. Until vigor hits 1100 AP.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: I did this math dumb is.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: I would say my decision on the most annoying. It was tough. I had to choose between Two, as a Darius player, I still hate going against Darius because of how much of a Lane bully he can be. But I'd say my number one choice, completely basing it off, if it's someone that knows how to play the champion is Riven. I hate going against Rivens. That's. There's a. It's an impossible trading pattern unless I'm playing like Renekton or even like Darius. Like someone that can kind of control the lane tempo with Riven. But I hate the trading pattern.
[01:00:11] Speaker B: Like at. At the level you and I are at, like plat to Emerald range. Most Rivens are bad enough that if you're playing Darius, you can go, oh, you traded on me and took half my health and now you want to run away. Well, you've burned all your gap clothes and I'm going to yoink you in. And you.
[01:00:27] Speaker A: Like, those are usually my answers. Yeah. If I see a Riven first pick, I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, I'll play Renekton because I can.
I got the dash. Like, I can play her gap close with. Gap close or with Darius just like get over here. You know, when she tries to get away and then like, she's just done for with the 1W.
[01:00:48] Speaker C: There is a reason I hate it that like more than any other champion Riven one tricks end up being challenger. Like high challenger. It. A Riven who plays Riven well is disgusting.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Oh yeah. I mean, I have been mastery completely on by Rivens that are good with their animation cancels like a good Riven doesn't mean they have like they could have terrible macro and micro. And that's why you can win the game. But a ribbon that can just dominate you in lane is the most infuriating thing to go against. It makes you think like, wow, I must be the worst player in this. In this entire game.
[01:01:28] Speaker C: Like, I died still good at team fights.
[01:01:31] Speaker A: Like, she did three autos on me and three Q's on me at level one. And oh, look, I died with Ignite. Like, it's just awful. Awful feeling.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: Yup. All right, toast. Other part of the question. I feel like I have a hard time stacking lots of runes and actually taking advantage of the benefits. How do I stack Conqueror to actually get stuff from it? I check the rune stats and I feel like my numbers on my main rune are always bad for Conqueror and lethal tempo. The ones that short term stack. You need fights to last more than a couple hits. That's really it.
[01:02:02] Speaker C: Yeah. There are a couple of champions that can stack them very, very quickly.
Probably the most prominent top laner who can stack Conqueror the quickest is Garen.
He spins and he gets it in a second.
And so he is probably the single best user of Conqueror in a top lane because even in any one of his trade fights, you Q E, you're getting Conqueror off.
[01:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:26] Speaker A: I can completely like. Sorry, go ahead.
[01:02:29] Speaker B: I was gonna say. But the. The key there and what you need to keep in mind as someone wanting to use that rune. If your entire trade is Q E and then you disengage Conqueror stats are gonna look terrible because you fully stacked it and then walked away.
[01:02:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Conqueror is a rune meant. So this might be the. The choice of runes in the games that you're doing. Conqueror is meant for fighting. You need to be fighting for Conqueror to be useful. Much like lethal tempo is meant for fighting. If you are doing little bits of trading, you may want grasp. You may want one of the electrocute.
You're not likely to get electrocute because usually you seem to be more on the top side. I can't tell. I don't know what your champion pool is. So it's hard to tell which set of runes you're going to do because some of them are not easy to notice. What how to do it, Grasp of the end dying, Getting procs for healing. You want to do long intermittent. Like I do a trade here we wait 15 seconds. I do another trade. So depending on what you're you're doing, your runes are very differently procced.
[01:03:34] Speaker B: Yep. The other thing to keep in mind is you're not supposed to see rune numbers saying oh, this rune did 5,000 damage over the course of the game. That's not normal. Those are very long games. Or one person really really hard dominated. Probably the most damage. It's fine.
[01:03:52] Speaker C: Probably the most prominent rune to give you damage doesn't tell you. It gives you damage and it's lethal tempo.
[01:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it tells you how much on hit damage Lethal tempo itself did. But it doesn't tell you how much additional on hit damage from all of your other on hit sources was dealt by the extra attack speed.
[01:04:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:04:09] Speaker B: Which is the real number.
[01:04:11] Speaker C: So it. It is meaningful enough to make the difference in trade fights. It is not. It is. It should never be equivalent to like what you see under an item.
[01:04:20] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:04:20] Speaker C: Items are supposed to be more powerful than your runes and masteries. So probably like a fifth to a quarter is relatively the like from your first item. That would give you a stat thing that's about how much you should expect.
[01:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, even when I'm playing a mage that can reliably proc electrocute, my electrocute's doing maybe 2000 to 3000 damage over the entire duration of a 35 plus minute game. It's really not that much because in those games I'm doing 40 to 60,000 damage.
[01:04:50] Speaker C: The easiest rune to proc, however, is probably just take press the attack and go Lucian to the top lane. You can proc press the attack in a second.
Auto attack. Dash Auto attack. Auto attack. Boom. PTA is going Auto attack.
[01:05:05] Speaker B: Any spell. Auto attack. Auto attack. Because the.
[01:05:10] Speaker C: Lucian works. Yep.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So yeah, this has been episode 495 of the Forwards Podcast. I've been Jack Sohman for Mike of Many Names and for Pillow Pet. Have a great night.
[01:05:22] Speaker A: Good night.
[01:05:23] Speaker C: Good night everybody.
[01:05:25] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our
[email protected] the Four Wards Podcast.
And of course, send your questions to the Four Wards podcastmail.com so we can.
[01:05:42] Speaker C: Answer them live on the show.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.
