The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 497: The Court of League is in Session

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. Hey, what's up? 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 497 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm 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. [00:00:51] Speaker B: I'm here and I'm no longer covered in dog poop. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Huzzah. You'll have to listen to the pre show to understand that one. We've also got Codex Ninja. [00:00:59] Speaker C: I'm here and I'm no longer in court. [00:01:04] Speaker A: That one I think is really just an inside joke for the three of us. [00:01:09] Speaker C: Sorry guys. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Guys, we are the Four Wards Podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. Get groups for Doombots. It's a good time. Link is in the episode description. Shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Robegon, Skippius, Esquire and Labana for supporting the podcast at the Shoutout tier. We appreciate you guys. Now if you want to get shouted out or just support us in general, head on over to patreon.com theforwards podcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. $10 a month will get you that same exclusive feed and you get shouted out at the top of every episode. And by the way, we have a new general gaming podcast. It's titled from 8bit to 4k. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a link in the episode description that Patreon Access gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of that show as well at no extra charge, it's just included. Last but not least, listeners, we did not get a single new question this week. Not one. [00:02:21] Speaker C: Guys, come on. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Disappointed. So write in to theforwardspodcastmail.com or drop your questions in the question submission channel of the Discord so we can answer your questions on the show. Thankfully we have a backlog of previous questions you guys have sent in, so we're not doomed for content on this episode. But we need more questions. We got a milestone episode coming up in like three weeks. Writing milestone questions. If you want ask us about League past Or whatever you can think of. I don't know. I'm a bad question asker because I answer them every week. [00:03:02] Speaker B: We definitely have people from every age of League going to be talking about League from there. And some people who hopefully on that milestone episode will have some people who no longer play League so they can give context. [00:03:16] Speaker A: Hopefully. We're hoping it'll be a fun episode. It may push out a patch discussion for a week, but that's fine. Alright guys, our topic for tonight. We're gonna talk about toxicity. In League of Legends. We want to kind of give the past, present and future talk about toxicity a little bit. Obviously everyone agrees toxicity is a problem. It loses games because people spend more time yelling swears at each other that are censored to avoid the AI detecting them than they do actually playing the game. So we're going to talk first about what has Riot tried to do in the past to address this. And we're going to start with one of the funniest, funniest things they've ever done. Riot had a system back in the old days of League of Legends called the Tribunal. And the Tribunal, the idea, the like pie in the sky vision of it was what if we had League of Legends players, Police League of Legends players. I'm sure you can already see why this went poorly. [00:04:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. This sounds great. [00:04:26] Speaker A: So the Tribunal was a voluntary system available on the League of Legends website, where you would go in and you could see sets of games that had someone reported in. So like if someone misbehaved in like three games, you would see chat logs from those three games. You would get to see the game score in those games and like stats like what, what champion were they playing, what items did they have? That kind of stuff. But the chat log was the focus because this was very focused on chat toxicity. And all you really did was do you agree this person should be punished or do you disagree and think they shouldn't have been punished? That's all your decision making was in the tribunal. And the idea was, well, we'll incentivize players with, you know, some, some lower cost skins or some. At the time it was called ip. But what, what is now Orange Essence basically, or Riot. It wasn't Riot points, it was. [00:05:22] Speaker C: Oh, it wasn't the blue one. It was the. Okay, that would be Blue Essence now because Blue Essence is the. Yeah, so Orange Essence is the one you pay for. [00:05:31] Speaker A: Orange Essence didn't exist back then. So that was the idea. Now I'm sure you're all screaming at your phone, at your car stereo, at your computer, whatever. You're listening to this on going, of course that didn't fucking work. League of Legends players are assholes. And that's the problem. What wound up actually happening with the tribunal. Even though you only got rewards if your decision was part of the majority, which was their idea of how to, like, deter that. Because the idea was if you vote, just punish on everything. But some of the games you're presented are games where nothing fucking happened and this person shouldn't have been reported in the first place. And the community largely said so you wouldn't get anything for it. That was the idea. But in practice, what happened is the community just said punish on everything because they wanted rewards. And enough people did that that everything in the tribunal was being marked punishment there. [00:06:30] Speaker B: It was a system that was good in theory, poor in execution. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Yep. [00:06:36] Speaker B: For multiple reasons. However, what ended up becoming my favorite thing to come out of the tribunal is something that has sort of been lost. One of the greatest things about tribunal was either it was somebody who was doing it who had a bunch of the logs for it, or perhaps there was a riot person in the back who just had something going on at the time. They found the funniest logs, whatever the crazy ones were, and they would get little images and they would do essentially voiceovers for these things and make a YouTube video and voice act out the chat log. [00:07:14] Speaker C: So, like a toxic, dramatic readings, yelling at the goddamn fucking jungler, trying to gank for her. [00:07:23] Speaker B: My favorite one. My favorite one, because I remember it completely, there was somebody who was playing Teemo and Nasus on the team. Same team. So it was in chat, they read up, give me an N. Give me an A. Give me an S. Give me a U. Give me an S. What is that spell? And then just the guy pops up. Nasus, useless fucking cunt. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Which is much funnier as a chat reading than it is. That's definitely Toxicity. But it's funny when it's red. [00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah. In general, I think everyone agrees that that kind of, like, it's still toxic and shouldn't be allowed, but that kind of creative and making people laugh. Toxicity is better than what we usually get. [00:08:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Like what you actually get. Yeah. No, I agree. [00:08:16] Speaker A: So needless to say, tribunal failed miserably. That's why it's not around anymore. That being said, if you've ever seen Judgment, Kael, people who have that skin, for the most part, there were a few other ways to get it later. Have it because they participated in tribunal. That's why I have it, for example. So that's how you know if someone is old as fuck when it comes to this games, if they have judgment. Kael, that's one of the. Oh, your account is old as fuckskins. The other thing they did in the past. And we'll get to how there's a current version of this as well. There was a rioter back in the day called Lyte, and he would regularly do what's called lite smites on the League of Legends forums, because we used to have forums. He would get situations where people claimed they were wrongly banned and he would. He would get their explicit permission. Oh, you think you were wrongly banned? Let me show your chat logs to the world. [00:09:20] Speaker C: To the world, baby. [00:09:22] Speaker A: And then he would fucking destroy them. Because these people invariably were some of the most toxic, horrendous people who should never be part of any online game ever again. And hence they were called Light Smites. Why these people. Why these people continued to say yes after he started doing this, I have no idea. But they did for a while. It was very funny and cathartic for those of us who aren't evil bastards, when these people are like, what do you mean, why did I get banned? Riot, Come on. I didn't do anything wrong. And then he posts the chat log and it's just so. Slur, slur, slur, slur, slur, hate speech, hate speech, slur, slur, die, die, Kill yourself. Not hyperbole, by the way. A lot of them were literally that. That stopped because Light no longer works at Riot. I do not remember the specifics of why, but if I remember correctly, it was not a pleasant leaving. No idea what he's doing now. I don't remember his real name. I just remember the summoner handle. So that's what Riot did in the past. What do we think about those tactics? [00:10:33] Speaker B: I'm gonna bring more of something similar to the future. I think Tribunal was too early for what it was needed and it was mismanaged. I love light smites. I think, quite honestly, I think Riot probably has a clause within the current game thing that if you write it during a game, it's now a public thing. We can post it again. So I don't think Light. Someone doing light smites or something similar would need permission to do this anymore. [00:11:10] Speaker A: I don't think so. I think it's in the tos. [00:11:13] Speaker B: So I think that is like, if someone complains, blast them. No, you see, we show you are being terrible. And for the most part with. With how we're going to get into situations currently, I think adding that in could be a real good idea. But I think. I think both of them were good, but they weren't quite ready yet. They're both funny. [00:11:41] Speaker A: Yes, we'll get there. I do think specifically that TOS change was within the last couple years because remember the old version of oh, someone you reported has been punished. Literally just said, someone you reported has been punished and now we get specifically name and shamed. This asshole in particular was punished for this. So on that note, what Riot does now, well, that's one of them. When people are punished, your report no longer needs to be the specific game that they got actioned for. Just a game in their recent history when they get actioned. So if someone is a jerk five games in a row that's gonna get you punished. You will see the message saying they were punished. Whether you reported them in game one, game three or game five, it does not matter anymore. It used to be your game had to be game five where they got punished before you got any notification at all. So more visible punishments is one of the current changes to the system making it more obvious, oh, people who misbehave are actually seeing punishments for this. Fighting the perception that we've had over the last 15 years that, oh, Riot doesn't do anything. You can say and do whatever you want. [00:12:57] Speaker C: I think actually like that's a big shift I feel in the last two years or so. Yes, I actually feel like Riot's trying. Whereas if you had asked me in 2022, I'd say, oh yeah, Riot doesn't give a fuck. They aren't doing anything like anything other than what they absolutely like the minimal amount of trying to moderate, like we will moderate absolute obvious slurs. That's it. [00:13:24] Speaker A: It felt like they were at legal obligations of moderation and now they're at, oh, we need to actually take this seriously for the future of our game now. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Like this is a noticeable thing because quite literally they made no changes to the system within like the year before they switched over to that actual telling you only they actually told you. And now you see so many more reports you realize, oh, there has all. There has been stuff going on, but this is like a probably 2020 post 2020 scenario. So the last five years or so when things have actually started to push where bans are coming from, there are a lot of people who have done some pretty shady things that have not been banned. And to be Fair. A lot of those are pro players and most of them haven't been the worst of things. But a couple people who were pretty prominent, either players or streamers got either Perma banned or like you're not allowed to play for a full year. Your. Your livelihood is now dead. [00:14:33] Speaker A: I. I still think it is a travesty that someone who was as toxic as Tyler1 was was allowed to go through a reform process in as short of a time as he did and is now a prominent partnered twitch streamer with Riot, like on official Riot broadcasts and shit. There was only a gap of like two years between him at his worst and him on official lcs. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yes, it was. Now he is one of the like better examples of hey, reform actually does work when you properly deal with that. [00:15:09] Speaker A: And that's the key is my issue isn't that he's on their broadcast now. My issue is how short the time frame was to where there was years where it was unclear whether the reform was actually genuine or if he was just playing along at this point. [00:15:24] Speaker B: He was obviously, I think still is an angry streamer. So like he does yes, noticeably be angry. [00:15:30] Speaker A: But I am an angry streamer. [00:15:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:35] Speaker A: There'S a difference. There is a difference. [00:15:39] Speaker B: I like I have a distinct remember remembrance for two players in specific. I will dominate who got a flat out year long bad. You are not allowed to play as a a pro level period. You're not allowed to play our game for a year when he was a pro player and got like thrown out right before Worlds and the player who is was incarnation became Jensen. [00:16:04] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:05] Speaker B: Both of them are like good examples of. No, this was. You got. They, they. If I remember Dominite was just a highly toxic player and Jensen was like actually saying slurs. But he was a teenager. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Yep. [00:16:20] Speaker B: And so. [00:16:21] Speaker A: And that's the key is like they learned their lessons. They learned their lessons. They reformed. And I do think that is important to have systems for reform. It would, I think it would be worse for the game if Riot had said ten plus years ago, okay, Jensen, dominate Tyler One, you are permanently, irrevocably, forever removed from our game. [00:16:44] Speaker B: Now that was also because of what kind of toxicity they were. They were banned for. They were banned for toxicity. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:51] Speaker B: There is a difference between that sort of ban and the. No, you're a hardcore cheater at this game. No perma ban. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Yes. And that they do straight up perma ban cheaters. There have been instances of people attempting to bring cheats into Riot events like scripts and stuff at like Tier two. Stuff. And those people are permanently rejected. Like, there is no second chance. [00:17:15] Speaker B: And that's how there was the entire, like, fixing thing that went on in Vietnam where 70% of their professional player base got a hard perma ban midway through their. Their like, playoffs. Right before worlds. [00:17:31] Speaker A: Yep. [00:17:31] Speaker B: And so because they were sure what was going to happen, they were fixing matches. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Yes. Specifically, like deliberately causing a specific outcome for gambling reasons. [00:17:43] Speaker C: Oh, for gambling reasons. I was just like, wait a minute. How. Oh, this is like gambling issues. [00:17:48] Speaker B: This is match fixing. This is like, yeah, this is match fixing. 1930s White Sox thing. [00:17:52] Speaker C: Yep. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Yes. [00:17:53] Speaker B: And there were a couple of people who were like, I was forced to do this on a team wide word. And these were the whistleblowers. And they went, we understand that you were pressured into this. So you don't get a perma ban. [00:18:08] Speaker A: They got a one. [00:18:08] Speaker B: You only get a ban for one year, etc. [00:18:12] Speaker A: It varied a little bit. [00:18:13] Speaker B: They're the people who are now in Vietnam still playing, of which for a while there was a couple of team owners, a bunch of coaches that came to that like it was. That entire ecosystem almost was completely crashed because of the amount of punishment that riot put down a hammer on. [00:18:32] Speaker A: And. And I think they had to. And we also. Now we have better detection than we did back then. Some of this is on a. Just, you know, our ability for computers to read text and interpret what is being said, especially when things are misspelled either unintentionally or intentionally, is much better than it was 10 to 15 years ago. We can feed someone's jumbled, angry gamer words to an AI and it can usually actually understand what the fuck that's supposed to say. [00:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So as long as several of those spellings have become common enough misspellings that people go, yes, I know what you're saying now. [00:19:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:19:14] Speaker C: So the final one that I wanted to throw out was Drew Levin, who is just a capybara on Twitter. He like, full on, like scrolls through Twitter in his. On his smoke breaks, looking for people who are very obviously publicly violating terms of service. For example, like, ironed to Challenger. Like, dude, like, if you don't handle for that particular streamer, I think got in trouble for buying their account, but it actually does. Yeah. And they're violating terms of service. And it's like, whoa. Like, it's one thing to do crimes, it is another thing to put them on Twitters. Like, do crimes do times. [00:20:02] Speaker A: Like, Drew Levin is very much the modern incarnation of the Light smites. The difference is that he's doing it not for necessarily toxicity bans, but more like exposing cheaters. [00:20:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep, yep, yep. [00:20:18] Speaker A: Specifically exposing all of that. [00:20:20] Speaker C: I'm so happy to see it. [00:20:22] Speaker B: He's exposing a lot of the dumb things. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Exposing a lot of the dumb things. Specifically exposing a lot of the cheaters who try to play for sympathy and pretend that they weren't cheating. Or an example of a tweet he posted two weeks ago. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:41] Speaker A: They got a year long vacation for this. Not their first offense ever. Crazy. I know. With someone asking if a name like I Love CP was bannable. Yeah. That person should not be in League of Legends or on the Internet in one. [00:20:56] Speaker B: You know what you're doing if you do something like that. I don't care if you mean to say crab people. [00:21:02] Speaker A: Also they had, they had the tag, you know, the four character tag afterwards was a Nazi dog whistle. If they had had ILoveCP hashtag 2077 they might have gotten away with it because cyberpunk. [00:21:17] Speaker B: 2077 CP277. [00:21:19] Speaker C: Oh, cyberpunk. [00:21:20] Speaker B: Oh, see again, like. [00:21:22] Speaker C: But context always tell. You know, the context always is true. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So like there, there needs to be clarification if you're going to do something stupid or you're just being stupid and sometimes you need a reminder. [00:21:38] Speaker A: Yep. And to be clear, the 2077 example would have had a forced name change. They just wouldn't have been permabanned. [00:21:45] Speaker C: Right. Exactly. And like it would just be fine as opposed to just you being a dickweed. [00:21:51] Speaker A: Yep. So he's, he's very much. Drew Levin is currently like the, the modern version of Light Smites. And I love it. I love that he's doing that and drawing public attention to it. Because our next question in our docket is are things better now than they used to be? I think the answer is just straight up yes. [00:22:10] Speaker C: Yeah, there's just. It's just straight up yes. I can't actually even think of anything that's actually legitimately worse every they've done. [00:22:19] Speaker B: The only thing that is worse is that there is a larger player base for more of this shit to happen. [00:22:24] Speaker A: So the thing that is worse is that there is a specific subset of the US population that has been emboldened in specific brands of asshole that are questionable whether or not they can get you banned or not. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Because of how that is a political climate thing. [00:22:42] Speaker A: That that's 2025 as a whole. That is not. That is not a league of Legends. [00:22:47] Speaker B: Outside of the US this is something that has been like building for A decade, like said. Yeah. Since 2015, when. When the presidential cathedral at the time became the way things are. So, like, this is a homegrown problem and we're sorry. [00:23:07] Speaker A: But my point is more, despite that, I think things are better now than they were. People are generally more subtle in their toxicity. It's rare nowadays to see someone just outright say, slur, slur, slur, slur, fuck you, kill yourself. [00:23:25] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's a lot more. [00:23:26] Speaker B: The one that I consistently still see is kill yourself. And that's unacceptable. [00:23:31] Speaker C: One acceptable. [00:23:33] Speaker B: Which is absolutely unacceptable. And this was unacceptable always. However, the Internet was the Internet and people were less willing to do that sort of like, ban for that sort of shit a decade and a half ago. [00:23:47] Speaker A: And that's, I think, the big difference. People actually get punished for saying one instance of that. Now it's auto detected by their detection system and perma mutes you for the rest of the game if you say that shit. [00:24:02] Speaker C: Mm. And it's good. It's just the way it should be. Just straight up, like, dude, if you're at that level. [00:24:08] Speaker B: So, Codex, this is the question for you because I always keep chat on. Have you ever had a detection word where someone has gone, this person has been muted for the rest of the game? [00:24:18] Speaker C: So I do still actually get that. It's so interesting. [00:24:22] Speaker B: Good. So, yeah, because that's. That was going to be. My question was if they don't. They need to, even for people who have the game muted, because that should slowly start to open up the game to more and more people being able to talk to each other. Yeah. [00:24:38] Speaker A: Yep. [00:24:39] Speaker C: Well, and. And that's another thing is that if I had like a single button where I could just toggle it on and off. Off, like easy peasy. I'm. I'm still glad with the system that I have, which is just perma off. Because honestly. Oh, man, I do not want to go back to the times of 2012 when I used to play with Chaton. I'm sorry, it's. It's a shitty place. [00:24:58] Speaker A: I. I'm gonna be real. As someone who plays with chat on, as someone who is a marginalized group online, you should not be turning Chaton in the first place. Just your gender is enough that you are exposed to a lot more awfulness than I would be. [00:25:15] Speaker C: It just isn't true for someone who. [00:25:17] Speaker A: Isn'T white because the Internet is terrible. [00:25:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:20] Speaker A: Like, plain and simple. I would not recommend this game still in 2025. To my friends who are queer, to my friends who are non Binary or trans to my friends who are female, to my friends who are minorities. Because this game is still toxic as fuck. And they will see targeted hate at whatever group they fit into if they play this game. [00:25:46] Speaker B: So the biggest problem has always been people using the quote unquote Internet language, as we will call it, being dicks online. Because you can be. And that's what we're gonna go with Internet languages. You're just doing it to be a dick. [00:26:02] Speaker A: I mean I called it gamer words earlier. [00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so like this is, this is people being dicks because they can be. And I think if you enjoy something, you shouldn't let someone else stop you from enjoying it. But that being said, I'm also not from a marginalized group, much like Jax. I'm. I was straight arrow as you can get for the white man in my 30s. But I, I also League of Legends is anonymous unless you stream or you give information out. [00:26:35] Speaker C: So that is true. No, that is true. And you hit the mute. [00:26:39] Speaker B: If you hit the mute button, you can just play and ignore all of what's going. [00:26:46] Speaker C: Do you want to know something really interesting about the self muting messages that I get? Like, you know, like how again I don't get, I don't get any. I don't need a chat message. Every once in a while though, randomly someone has self muted and those people. [00:27:00] Speaker A: Will mute and re mute. [00:27:04] Speaker C: So one thing that is really interesting about no, it's actually an auto mute. It's when the system says this person has said kill yourself or some awful thing. Right. It doesn't restrict what it was said. Yeah, I actually see the auto mutes. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Those are different because people can also self mute where they just in the middle of the game say okay, I'm turning off chat for the rest of the game and it announces that to your team for some fucking reason. [00:27:29] Speaker C: That's why I do it. [00:27:30] Speaker A: People will do that and then unmute to say something toxic and then re mute so they don't have to hear see whatever you say in response to it. [00:27:37] Speaker B: It's so that if someone has chat on and they turn chat off, you know that you're not talking to them anymore. That's theoretically a smart thing. However, people use it to be dicks without seeing other people talking. So. [00:27:50] Speaker C: So that's actually why I mute in lobby. Because then it doesn't get announced. At least I don't think think it gets announced. I hope it does. [00:27:56] Speaker A: Don't you just have chat disabled in settings? [00:27:59] Speaker C: No, I actually don't. I have muted Chat in lobby every time by hand. That's actually technically the reason is is like there's something with like technically speaking I could type and like I just like it that way. And don't get me wrong, I don't type. I really really, really, really really don't type. But it just is. It's just healthier. It's like. I don't know. But the one thing I thought was really interesting about the auto mutes they actually to me just sort of randomly happen. It is so interesting when people just fucking flame out in a game versus like it's like when anything's happening fight where it was like oh my God, this is like the key fight. And then you know, I get caught by fucking Morgana Q and it just like the fucking game ends because I'm a moron. [00:28:46] Speaker B: It's because they're not the ones who are like their, their moment of break is never something that happens with everyone around. [00:28:55] Speaker C: Yeah, no it isn't. It's always. [00:28:57] Speaker B: Unless they're a Dr. Random of course. You stole seven of my farm. You. [00:29:04] Speaker C: Yeah, you. Oh my God. [00:29:06] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:29:07] Speaker C: That's like five stacks. [00:29:09] Speaker B: But. But it's. It's always someone off in the middle of either they're up in the the usually it seems to be the top player the most often but I get it in top and support/ad carry a lot. I don't see it in mid as a jungle error too much where they're. They're either on the losing end of of like 1v3 or they're they're down, they've lost, they get solo killed, death early, game over, game over. [00:29:37] Speaker C: Like okay what sure. [00:29:39] Speaker B: And then you try and say it's usually that and then someone tries to say something and then they fly off the handle or nothing happens and something else like interferes briefly with them and they just fucking lose it. [00:29:52] Speaker A: Yep, I. I had one. I don't remember the specific champion involved but our because again it's always fucking top laners. Our top laner on one of the teams just hard flamed out because the jungler didn't path the way he told him to on his first play. [00:30:11] Speaker B: Oh he was watching that game. I remember that. [00:30:15] Speaker A: Just absolute fucking mental crater because the jungler didn't do what he told him. And I don't understand how those people get into ranked like how do they get into our games? [00:30:30] Speaker C: So okay, I actually so I have a riff on this particular story. So I'm part of a community, another community. It's called School, School. But you know, it's another League of Legends community. But it's more of like a forum kind of thing. And I love it. It's so great. There was once a jungler who posted. He was. He was a yee jungler. He loved to play Yi and he was just like, why the can't we dive? Like I don't even remember. It was like level three or he got really, really upset that his teammates didn't articulate a combination complex dive like fairly early. And he had like this point by point plan of how he would execute this dive. And it's like, oh my bro, my bro, my bro. You. You were talking about diving which is probably the most mechanically difficult like full on thing to do in League of Legends. Like straight up other than straight up 5e type tea fight at least game. [00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:30] Speaker C: And like an early game. Yi with. You're gonna have reset tower aggro and you're asking your ADC to do this complex problem. Like you do realize why, why you're not. Why a eight step plan isn't gonna work and why you can't text someone. This is the eight step program. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like people like that, they want league to be like this like, like data spreadsheet thing. And it's like, no, guys, we kind of, we kind of. We throw our things at them. They throw our things at us and some of us are better than others. [00:32:05] Speaker B: The other thing is people expecting people to be either a as good as them or be on the exact same page as them. This is obviously the only thing that we can do right now. You must do it at the same time as me. [00:32:18] Speaker C: Yeah, you have to do it at the exact same time. And like, dude, that's kinda hard. Like we're not on comms. [00:32:29] Speaker A: I feel like those flameouts in particular have gotten worse over the years as people have built more institutionalized game knowledge that they assume everyone else has the same version of that game knowledge they have as they watch pro play or high elo streamers and watch them talk about their games and what they think is the correct way to play. And these people build up these narratives in their head of how everything. [00:32:53] Speaker C: No, I agree. Actually that was the one thing I was going to say about the. Is it better now? That is the only thing that is not better is that there is an under. We have this institutionalized knowledge thing where people are just like, well, absolutely. You would absolutely hold the wave here. What the fuck? Are you hitting the wave? Are you like. And Fuck, man. I as an ad carry, I'm just as like guilty. I have absolutely no. Mentally flamed my support. Oh my God, this dude is absolutely hitting the wave. Why the fuck are you hitting it? Right. But I have like 12 years of institutionalized knowledge stuck up in this brain. Like, you know what I mean? [00:33:32] Speaker B: And like, we can go even further. We've done episodes of like. Oh yeah, terminology we use isn't common. [00:33:40] Speaker A: Yep. And in some cases we're using old terminology straight up. [00:33:45] Speaker B: Yep. [00:33:46] Speaker A: So I don't know, is it better now? Is seems we. Seems like we agree mostly. Yes. But not good enough. And there's specific aspects that are worse. [00:33:55] Speaker B: Yes. Few and far between, but yes. [00:33:58] Speaker A: Our last question for the toxicity topic then is what could be done to improve things further. And what we have written down here earlier. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And that that tribunal system should probably be brought back now. Now that we have more basic AI understanding that these are the things that are just always going to be banned. So you don't have to worry about that as the baseline ban anymore. Now you can actually start getting chats to see what other things people are doing to get around those restrictions. And this is where a tribunal would be a great system. Hey, maybe literally train the AI. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. [00:34:41] Speaker C: No, no, no. Train the AI that like punish. Not punish. Yeah. [00:34:46] Speaker A: And importantly, do not tie whether or not you get a reward to whether or not you agree with the fucking consensus. [00:34:54] Speaker C: Like the verdict. Yeah. It's participation, not verdict. [00:34:59] Speaker A: What it would need to do if they were going to do that is it would need to have eight timer. You cannot choose, agree or disagree until 30 seconds have passed for you to read the chat log or whatever it might be to discourage people who just want to go in there and click their 10 matches to get the free thing from doing so. It would only be people clicking it because it's not worth your time. Are you going to spend five minutes for 500 blows? [00:35:27] Speaker B: Do it specifically. Tie it to Blue Essence, not anything else. Blue Essence is not needed by any of the very, very high end of people who actually give a shit about like trying to game a system. [00:35:41] Speaker A: Yeah. We're not trying to buy rune pages and runes. We're not trying to buy a new champion every two weeks. That's. Those incentives for what was the. What became Blue Essence don't exist anymore. All of us veterans own every champion and have no use for Blue Essence. That's why we have the Essence Emporium twice a year. [00:36:01] Speaker C: So I have a. I have a spicy take. You know, we Are all veterans, so we wouldn't pro. I gotta be honest with you. I'd never interact with a system that gave out blue essence. It's just not worth it to me. But let's think about this for a sec. Would you do it for a Gacha Pull? [00:36:19] Speaker A: They wouldn't do it on a Gacha Pull that is actually worth your while. It would be a regular hextech chest at best. [00:36:25] Speaker B: So if I had to guess what they would do with the Gacha pull thing if for like, for a gotcha poll thing, you would need to be someone who is like. No, you are actively one of the most consistent tribunal people over the course of a period of time actively working on these things, actively seeing these things done and, and tying it into. This is where you tie it in. You're actively doing things that are. These are appropriate responses according to the general consensus. [00:36:58] Speaker A: Yes. Now you would need to maintain Honor five, for example. [00:37:02] Speaker C: Oh yeah, no, Honor five you can participate in, you know, new. New tribunal like to get. To get X number of Gacha polls. [00:37:13] Speaker B: I, I think one that is a great way to do it. You must be Honor five before you can even interact with the system. However that doesn't work. [00:37:21] Speaker A: The old tribunal of the year, it. [00:37:24] Speaker C: Wouldn'T begin at the beginning of the year. But at the same time give Honor five like a really, really amazing. And I mean, I don't know, I hate the Gacha system. But like, like at least give it something that, that even a veteran player would kind of like at least raise an eyebrow at. You know what I mean? [00:37:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Would be nice. They. They could literally if they. If they were smart, make it gated by honor 5. Make it. So you have to maintain honor 5 throughout the entire season. And at the end of season, if you participate in. [00:37:54] Speaker B: Once you have achieved Honor five, you must maintain on our five. [00:37:58] Speaker A: Yes. Once you're on our five, you can participate. And if you participate enough of whatever it is to feed their AI so their AI can detect this shit better, you get one skin out of your shop. Pick one. They already have the. Your shop that picks skins that they think you will be interested in buying. [00:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah, get like a freeze hoke. That's it. Click go. Yep. [00:38:18] Speaker A: And specifically I would not make it something that you could hang onto and use later. It would be something you need to use then on like the. The winter sale. Your shop. [00:38:28] Speaker B: Oh yeah. When the like six champions pop up. Do it like once. Once you have achieved it. This is your thing. You have three weeks to decide one of these Champions is yours for free or one of these skins is yours for free. [00:38:40] Speaker A: That would be how I would do it because that's using systems they already have. It's going to be targeted at the player because your shop specifically looks at what champions are you playing. [00:38:49] Speaker C: Also I actually bought most of my skins via your shop. Like I gotta be honest with you. That is where I buy most of my skins straight up. [00:38:57] Speaker A: It's. It's a good system for exploiting fomo. Let's be real. [00:39:01] Speaker C: But I mean a little bit of fomo but I mean I don't know. [00:39:06] Speaker B: Greedy, evil. [00:39:07] Speaker C: That Riot's put out in the last three years. It. It is lower on the sin rating. [00:39:14] Speaker A: It is definitely less sinful than anything. Gotcha. [00:39:17] Speaker B: Now there's. There's one other thing about this specifically that I want to point out and that I think the system overall is a good thing. I think they need new tiers of punishment. Other things to do for various different discrepancies. Like you. [00:39:33] Speaker C: I think that they are doing it based on time. [00:39:36] Speaker B: Well, it's not just like. Not a ban system. Not just you're banned completely a no. You're cut off from ranked for X amount of time and you need to prove X honor before you're allowed to go back into ranked. Things like that. Other additional forms of punishment that aren't just ban because you can do that on lower tiers that aren't bannable. No, you've been kinda toxic but not banably toxic. So let's. Let's give you a reason to actually not be toxic again. Go through this, do this, maintain this. Then you're back into ranked. [00:40:13] Speaker A: Alright. Any other last thoughts on toxicity in League of Legends? Other than we wish it all would go away. [00:40:19] Speaker B: I'm good. [00:40:19] Speaker A: Okay. Let's do some listener questions. Our first set of questions tonight comes from Reigns who writes in questions for when you need fillers. I understand. I send a lot. Yes you do. And we appreciate it Rains. [00:40:31] Speaker C: Yeah. Goreens. [00:40:34] Speaker A: How do you optimize your teamfight impact as a I run at you and fuck you champion. My flavor is trundle when you don't have CC reduction other than mercs and you are the team's tank engagement. [00:40:47] Speaker B: You can be the tank without being at the engage is the start. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Yes. [00:40:52] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. So for. For me I as the ADC would suggest that you. You optimize this by. By using fog. You have to run at them when they cannot see you. So. So utilizing fog the most and racing out when they aren't expecting you that, that is the most deadly thing that kills me them every time is because they ran out in fog. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Specifically fog. And being patient. This is a big one. You do not have to be the one who starts fights. If you are a run at you and fuck you champion, you probably shouldn't be the one starting fights unless the enemy presents a golden opportunity. These champions, these. This is champions like Trundle, Nasus, Dr. Mundo, Bolibear, Garen, all of those. These champions are at their best when they join a fight that is already in progress and disrupts the backline because all of them have enough kill threat that if the backline does not immediately stop what they're doing and reacts to this guy instead, they don't get to do damage anymore. So the best way to play all of these champions, whether you are playing them from the top lane or the jungle or whatever, is to wait. Let the enemy engage on your team or let your team engage on the enemy team as appropriate to the circumstance. While you are around a corner out of vision, use pink wards to make sure you're out of vision. And then once the fight is in full swing and their frontline has started fighting to where they no longer have the CC tools to lock you down, then you come around the corner and start running at their carries. And their carries can no longer kill the rest of your team because they have to deal with you. [00:42:37] Speaker B: So here's an interesting point in this. You're specifically talking about teamfight impact here and most team. Now, I understand this is now a generalization because we're talking about league. At our level, team fights happen literally everywhere. But team fights mostly happen around objectives or they try to happen around objectives. So usually this is a big bait. Pull, push, pull. Push, pull, push, pull. Go. People like Trundle in these scenarios, half the time you're the frontliner who's sitting there trying to absorb things. So you don't get to be the fog. Or if you're on the other team, you're the one who is pushing them towards that objective and being the person who is the first to get targeted. This depends a little bit on your positioning in this fight and that. Is your team taking the objective or are you going after the team who's taking the objective? Are you the defenders or the attackers? Essentially, because if you're a defender, your goal is to counter engage. And if you are an attacker, it is wait until the other person who is going to go in with you. Because there should always be two. If you don't have a Tank or an engager, wait until that other person is in a position where they can come in and help you. And then you go in and your goal is to disrupt. If you're the attacker, your goal is to get towards that back line and mess them up. If you're the defender, you can be the person who stops that front line. I'm not going to let that Sejuani get on the back line of my team. So you're. You're sort of screening as opposed to engaging. [00:44:13] Speaker A: Yep. [00:44:14] Speaker B: And the best as the champions you're talking about, your goal isn't always to do damage. Your goal is to either make sure your objective is secured in the backline. Hey, I'm not letting you get to this area or I'm not letting you get to my carries. So this is really dependent. [00:44:31] Speaker A: A way to think about it a lot of the time is whether or not you killed the carry is not the measure of success. [00:44:37] Speaker B: If you're going to die, it's not a measure of success. [00:44:40] Speaker A: Yeah. If you have a fight where you draw the attention of their mid laner and their ad carry and you die because it's two on one. And those carries cut through you like a hot knife through butter. But in the time it took to do that, they weren't hitting your mid laner and your ad carry and their support and their jungler are now dead. That might be a one fight because you just traded one for two. [00:45:02] Speaker C: Yep. Because guess what? Their mid laner just blew all their cooldowns on you. And you know, sure, the ad carry has some uptime, but that ad carry without the support defending them is going to be just a hot mess. [00:45:15] Speaker B: Sometimes it can just be. I got that ULT out of them. If you pull an Orianna Ult alone as a trundle, you've won. [00:45:21] Speaker A: Usually. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Yeah. It can be other problems. Yeah. Yeah. [00:45:25] Speaker A: So Reigns continues. I seem to keep losing to Top lane Yi who builds Titanic and attack speed and we just can't stop him. Is there a reason why this build is better or why Top is better than Jungle? Additionally, is Nasus a good counter to Yi in general because of Wither or does that not affect his attack speed during ult? I want to address that part first. [00:45:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Because I actually wanted to, if it's okay with you, Because I actually like, like, I just wanted to clarify, what does Yeez Ult do? Because I actually looked this up and I still don't know. [00:45:55] Speaker B: I can tell you that. And I can tell you what NASA's wither does to that. [00:45:59] Speaker A: The answer to the second part is nothing. Because Master Yi, during his Ult, is ghosted. He can run three units. He gets bonus attack speed. He gets bonus movement speed. He is immune to all slows and cripples, which is. The attack speed slow that Wither applies is a cripple. [00:46:16] Speaker C: Oh, it is actually considered a cripple. Okay, that. That was the thing. It wasn't listed on the list of cripples, and I was getting confused. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it is a cripple. It just cripples for a percentage of the movement speed slow instead of its own distinct value. [00:46:32] Speaker C: Okay, so, yeah, Nisus Wither does nothing. [00:46:35] Speaker B: To Yi in Ult, so it's specifically in Ult. However, Nasus is, in general, a very good counter to Yi, because Nasus is one of the people who, if Yi doesn't ult, he can't fight you. [00:46:51] Speaker C: Okay. If you catch him outside of the. [00:46:54] Speaker B: Ult period, if you get to Yi, you put Wither on him. He has to ult. [00:46:59] Speaker A: All right, Mike, we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one. [00:47:02] Speaker C: Theoretical. I just want to ask a question before we go there. [00:47:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:06] Speaker C: You've got an a level 11 Nessus and a level 11 Yi. They're both equal. They've just been neck and neck the entire lane. We're both in top. Does Yi win on paper? Does Nessus win on paper? Whose Ult lasts longer depends on far. Okay. Okay. And I'm saying equal. Farm. I'm saying both. [00:47:24] Speaker A: Both have farmed well, and here's the qualifier. And this is why I disagree with Mike so fundamentally. The build that Reigns is talking about is not the Yi build you're thinking of. He is not building Kraken, Slayer, Rageblade, Bork Wit's End. I'm squishy, but I do a billion damage. Master Yi, he is building Bruiser Yi. And Bruiser Yi pretty much always wins. There. There is. Once they're at two to three items, there is nothing Nasus can ever do for the rest of the game. Bruiser Yi does so much true damage and doesn't die in two Qs. And that's just that. Especially if Bruh E is smart enough to use his W to block a Nasus Q. It's brutal. And that's why I don't like Nasus as a counter. The counter I really like. Play Jax. [00:48:14] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Beat the shit out of him. [00:48:17] Speaker A: Jax scales amazingly, does tons of damage, and can say fuck you to at least two seconds of Master Yi's damage every like eight seconds. And that's the important part is if Master Yi correctly Alpha strikes, your counter strike, you still spent two seconds. Just let it time out. Don't. Don't recast. You spent two seconds of being invulnerable to Master Yi's damage. If he does not correctly alpha strike, he either does it too early or doesn't do it at all. That's two seconds of invulnerability and then a second of him being stunned. You get three seconds of Yi being unable to damage you. That's why Jax is my main pick. There's also a good case to be made for Rammus because no matter how Master Yi builds, he's going to shred himself on a Rammus in particular. [00:49:08] Speaker C: Yes, he will kill Rammus in a while. But sure. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Against Master Yi specifically. If you are certain it is Yi top. Or if they've picked another heavy auto attacker and Rammus is good regardless of which one it is. What's Master Yi ever going to do? If he tries to go under turret to take your turret, you taunt him. Which forces turret aggro on him. And he shreds himself on ball curl. If he doesn't. If he just tries to fight you, you have ball curl. You laugh at him while he kills himself. If he builds more offense or more defense, it doesn't change this math. Will he kill you eventually because he has true damage? Yes. That's not what it's about. The Rammus choice is mutually assured destruction and ensuring that Master Yi cannot split to win. [00:49:57] Speaker B: And there is actually a point of health where Rammus just wins because he forcibly kills himself long before you die to true damage. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Yes. And that's the key is if you are playing Ramus into Master Yi, this needs to be a health heavy build. You are not building 300 armor before your ball curl. You are building. [00:50:19] Speaker B: But Thornmail is your first item actually full Thornmail. This is one of the few case scenarios where Thornmail first is correct. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Yes. And then you are building heavy life items after that. You want a heart steal. You want that kind of stuff. Whereas you don't want to go like frozen heart. Frozen heart's useless in this situation. The. The thornmail and your steelcaps is enough armor basically is the key here. Because he has so much true damage, you're just trying to make sure that he does not get to play the game. Because you. You said in your question that he. You can't stop him. Rammus completely neutralizes him. The only play he has at that point is to go join his team in Teamfight. At which point you are now free to do the same. And you are a rammus. There's nothing stopping you from joining the team fight and still taunting him and having him kill himself. But this time with your friends around. [00:51:11] Speaker C: So you know. And again like we love questions. We love reigns. Reigns a bro bro. You just. You're just always coming at us with questions. I would like to make a shout out to the wiki.leagueoflegends.com though because when you asked this I was like oh she shoot. I don't know. I know there's a cleanse on the yield, but I don't know like if that's a cripple or not. If you do go to you can see on Yee's old, you can see it takes out he's. He's cripple immune. And then if you go to Nessus's Wither you can see both slow and it is. It is slowing them and crippling them. So you can know the the old is is is undoing with her. And. And because we don't appreciate your questions. [00:51:58] Speaker B: Because this used to work on G. Wither used to just not have that cripple thing. It used to slow his attack speed, not his movement speed. [00:52:06] Speaker A: Yep. Here's where it gets fucky though. Wither is a single debuff. If you are slow immune without having cripple immunity, you still do not get crippled by Wither. [00:52:17] Speaker B: This is because of how it is coded now. [00:52:19] Speaker A: Yes, this is how Wither works. This has nothing to do with Master Yi. [00:52:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So like in the. In the past Wither used to actually work on Yi while he altered and he would lose. He would still be slow immune but the attack speed slow would go through. [00:52:36] Speaker A: Yep. [00:52:37] Speaker B: This is one of the old things where like this is me going oh, this is no longer coded this way. It is now considered a as well. [00:52:45] Speaker A: But an example of where the slow immunity applying would matter is like if you wither a Sejuani who still has her passive up, you don't cripple her. Which is weird. But that's how it works. [00:52:56] Speaker C: It's just how it works. But at the same time the only reason why I wanted to point out the wiki is because it has no ads. It is so nice. Don't be using fandom anymore. Yeah. [00:53:07] Speaker A: For any game where it is possible to do so, don't use the fandom wiki. Fandom wikis are outdated on any game that has any other option as a Wiki I am not kidding. Fandom is fucking awful. Please for the love of God stop using the fandom wiki wiki leagueends.com There's. [00:53:24] Speaker B: A little other point about this question that I want to point out and that is Top versus Jungle Yi is a better jungler than he is a top laner and he's a better jungler than he is a top laner for two reasons. One, it's far less likely someone's interfering with him while he's farming and Yi wants to farm. And as a top laner you have to put effort into not dying to farm. And two, Yi has one of the best run at you in gank ganks there is because he moves really fast even though he has no cc. He has incredible damage and he is very fast. [00:54:01] Speaker A: Here's the last reason though. Master Yi's one Sustainability has really high mana costs in lane in jungle. That's a non issue completely infinite man sustain in jungle. Yes. And I am not kidding when I say meditate costs 40 mana plus 6% of your maximum mana per second. [00:54:25] Speaker B: It they they made this because Lane Yi was oppressively powerful. Now admittedly in the past it used to be AP Master Yi and so it was like the most disgusting thing in the world. However, as another form of gating it to prevent AD from coming in, they went this needs to be prohibitively expensive to continuously use. [00:54:45] Speaker A: Yep. And that means you can't even just itemize mana to negate this. [00:54:50] Speaker B: So most other top laners just straight up counter Master Yi in the top lane because they're fighters and Yi doesn't. [00:54:58] Speaker A: Start strong with the caveat of if he gets through the laning phase and can go even, he just outscales. [00:55:04] Speaker B: Yeah, there's. There's a couple of people who will end up beating him. But like for the most part ye eventually just becomes a terror. [00:55:12] Speaker A: Yep. So let's do more of Reigns questions. I'm doing better at understanding when to use specific runes for my champions and matches. But how should the decision making flow be reflected for summoner spells typically like Ignite versus Teleport. Ghost versus Flash. Cleanse versus Barrier versus Healing. [00:55:30] Speaker B: There's also an easy mark on this one. Almost in every scenario. Ghost vs. Flash is a known yes or no. [00:55:38] Speaker A: Yes. [00:55:38] Speaker B: This isn't a choice. You either do it or you don't. I'm a champion. There's very occasionally champions who take Ghost and Flash. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Those are typically a choice. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Those are choices. The Ghost vs Flash is done by picking a champion. Hecarim Just Takes Ghost Cleanse vs. Barrier vs. Heal is entirely dependent on Usually this is an ad carry slash support thing. More of the ad carry than anything else. Might be stepping on your toes here. But this one is like pretty much it is. Is there a one cc that will get me killed? Is there an asphalt? Is there a very specifically. [00:56:20] Speaker A: Specifically. Must be a cleansable cc. [00:56:22] Speaker C: Cleanse will not cleanseable because again it can't be suppressed. It can't be Blitzcrinkle or he. Yeah yeah, yeah. [00:56:29] Speaker B: It does nothing against silences but needs to be one of the hard ccs that will get you killed. [00:56:34] Speaker A: This is like Asholt Morgana mind that kind of stuff. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Barrier versus Heal is also sort of a champion thing. Barrier is usually a I'm using this during a fight. Heal is a I'm using this at the end of a fight. That's more of a decision making. It's also like whether or not there is a high burst damage versus whether or not that is the general one. If someone can burst you 1000 barrier will heal you. Where he'll will not heal is better for sustained lane. Ignite versus Teleport is the actual major choice for a lot of people. And Ignite versus Teleport is Am I trying to kill you? Can I kill you? [00:57:18] Speaker A: And that's more importantly, can I kill you repeatedly? Because if you can only get one kill with Ignite, if there's like you can kill them once pre 6, but then once they're level 6, it's an even fight. You shouldn't be taking Ignite in that matchup. You should be taking Teleport. Ignite is for the I'm going to kill you repeatedly. I am going to make your life hell. Or alternately, you are a very healing centric early champion such as Aatrox, Vladimir, those types. And I need Ignite to be able to kill you. Or you just run over me. [00:57:54] Speaker B: There is a different caveat on that one, which is I am not building a heal cut item. [00:58:01] Speaker A: An example of this would be like if you're playing let's say a damaging tank like K' Sante or Sett. Yeah, or someone like Sett. But you're against a Vladimir. You don't really want to build Executioners. Those champions don't want to build the Executioner's items. Vladimir doesn't have to auto attack you, so Bramble Vest is worthless. But you can have kill pressure if you can cut his healing at the right moments. Ignite's a good choice in those cases. [00:58:27] Speaker C: All right, so I'm gonna do like, you know, carry carries 101. Like who takes what? How does this work, all that great stuff. So as of this patch, we are currently on barrier for the. For 80% of the carries that you are going to place, you should be running flash and barrier. The reason why we are running 80% of the time running barrier is because the cooldown is currently 180 seconds versus exhaust and heal are currently 240. There has been times where taking ignite because again, that one is also 180 in certain lanes might make sense, but I gotta be honest with you, you're gonna want your barrier versus more so than your ignite. That's usually the support is taking on. [00:59:13] Speaker B: So yeah, that's the other half of that. The support is the one who is grabbing exhaust, heal, heal. Actually now because yeah, and. And ignite. They're the ones who are being the pressure the 80 carry builds to survive. Those are what your support, your summoner should be about. [00:59:33] Speaker C: So where we start getting into cleanse, like. Like we said like does everything that is CC cleansable. Which unfortunately you gotta learn it because again, Warwick Ult. Jesus. What's another Suppression Malzahar Alt. Those are the two big. Yeah, yeah. So there. There are a couple expressions and you're gonna be like, dude, I'm cleansing. I'm cleansing. And you're like mashing the button and it's not working. It's there. There's weird esoteric reasons of what is cleansable and what is not. You do need to learn it and it sucks because it really should just be everything, right? It'd be really nice if it was, to be honest. [01:00:12] Speaker B: It should be the reverse of what is currently McHale's gets you out of suppresses and cleanse does not. You can just buy a McHales. Anyone can do that at any point. Like the Quicksilver slash Mikhails. Those things can be remove suppression. It should be cleanse that does it because it's. I'm forced to take a summoner spell, but that's not how it works. [01:00:35] Speaker C: So the only other shout outs I kind of wanted to make real, real quick is there are points in time. In my opinion, there are points in times in the meta on certain champions where ghost is actually very nice on carries. There are certain carries that really like to have ghosts and it is better to re running like ghost over barrier. That being said, currently, dude, it's 180 seconds. It's just a better spell. Like in 80 of the situations you got to get specific I would also point out that Ghost is way more fun than Barrier versus I feel like. [01:01:11] Speaker B: We haven't said Cleanse is only great when there is one or two big CCs. Yeah, when it's like four or five if their team is really heavy. CC cleanse is not saving you. [01:01:27] Speaker C: And that's actually why I wanted to bring up Ghost too. [01:01:31] Speaker A: Well, I want to fundamentally disagree with what Mike just said. [01:01:35] Speaker B: Cleanse. That's true. [01:01:37] Speaker A: 75% tenacity for three seconds. And the reason it will save you is not because of that. The reason it will save you is because it is in concert with Flash. You get ash arrowed, you cleanse and then you flash the following cc, you are now out of threat. That is the scenario where Cleanse still saves you no matter how much CC they're piling on. As long as it is cleanseable. [01:02:03] Speaker B: I have seen more people cleanse into immediately getting cc'd than cleansing to surviving when there is multiple sets of CC in that scenario. I would almost say just take Barrier instead. [01:02:15] Speaker C: I also, I want to throw out a shout out. I used to be a super anti Cleanse player. I used to say Cleanse is a fantasy that, like this idea that you could just cleanse it and there wouldn't be 800,000 other CCs coming directly at you the exact same second. So like, like I said, I used to be a player that just felt, no, this is fucking like why, why even have this? It's stupid. Um, that being said, I got into a bunch of 2v2s with my other community and I started working with a Leona like, like and starting to cleanse their shit. Oh my God. If you can do it frame perfect and, and you gotta practice. I'm not saying that it's not a skill, but if you can put in the time to practice your muscle memory with Flash. Nope, Flash actually is viable. It's. The problem is, is that like the way that our game works, you don't get like, oh, I'm going to get five games in a row where I'm. I need to take Cleanse and you know what I mean? So I will say if you, if you are in the boat where you don't believe Cleanse is valuable, I would start taking it straight. I would literally stop taking barium. Take Cleanse until you're good at it. Like, learn it as a skill. [01:03:26] Speaker A: Here's the other fun part that a lot of people don't realize. Cleanse removes ignite and exhaust. [01:03:33] Speaker B: Yes, it does. [01:03:35] Speaker A: Exhaust being the big one because Exhaust cuts your damage by a third while you are exhausted. So cleanse can actually be a damage improvement if you are getting exhausted. [01:03:47] Speaker C: And then the final shout out. I did want it really quick. They have mucked around with teleport way too much that even the APCs like Huebot Zigspot. All of those I don't even like. I mean the mages probably still do run teleport, but I no Carry runs teleport. Just don't take it like. Like you're trolling. In my opinion, if you. You're either trolling or you are 200 years like way gigantic. [01:04:12] Speaker B: If you are a carry taking teleport, you are one of two things. You are one Ezreal, who still takes teleport? Sometimes, not often, but sometimes. Or two, you're doing summoner spell book. [01:04:25] Speaker C: Okay, yeah, I'm sure there's a niche for it somewhere. But anyway, I just want to say for. For the 99.898% Carrie should not be running teleport. Even. Even the way Zigs. All those people. Nope. You should be running heal or. Or even ghost. I don't know. [01:04:43] Speaker B: Well, Ziggs runs teleport because even if he's the carry bottom, that way he can rotate around the map to get more turrets quicker. [01:04:49] Speaker A: Yes, it's specifically for Ziggs. Is so that you can shove out a lane with your spells and then teleport to another lane and take plates. [01:04:58] Speaker C: Okay, again, it's a plate turn. [01:05:00] Speaker B: It is a Ziggs is income plus a quality. Ziggs is a unique one. [01:05:04] Speaker A: Also, don't play Ziggs bot right now. He's fucking terrible bot. Play him mid. [01:05:08] Speaker B: Just play him mid. Play him mid. [01:05:09] Speaker C: He's like, just play him mid. Like there's no reason. Just play mid. It's all good. It's all good. [01:05:13] Speaker B: Although Ziggs is a great cat. Caveat into the next part of the question. [01:05:17] Speaker A: The next question. [01:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:20] Speaker A: Are there better ways to build burst mages to better deal with tanks other than Liandry's? Or is that it? And which burst mages are the best against tanks? [01:05:29] Speaker B: The best burst mages against tanks are the ones who can repeatedly fire spells. [01:05:34] Speaker A: Yes. [01:05:35] Speaker B: Ziggs is one of the better ones because he can repeatedly fire spells. One of the worst ones is like I say, this is the worst. She's actually fairly good at it because Orianna is able to do more than just this. But she does a three spell combo that doesn't kill tanks well. However, other portions of her kit actually lend themselves to killing tanks. [01:05:58] Speaker A: So an example of great against tanks would be Veigar. He's a burst mage, but late game, he's spamming Q and W on like a three second cooldown each. And each of them is gonna do like a thousand plus base damage. Yeah, the tank is gonna have Mr. Veigar builds a void staff in that situation. Oh no. Vegar's only doing 500 damage per spell every two spells every three seconds. [01:06:25] Speaker B: And every time it hits, he's gaining more AP. So. [01:06:28] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:06:29] Speaker B: Here's a great one. Ziggs is a great one because he throws out zone control and he throws out a dog ton of damage. [01:06:36] Speaker A: I have had so many games where I played Ziggs one because I used satchel charge at the right time to peel the tank. Peel is really undervalued on a lot of burst mages. Just because you're a Syndra doesn't mean the only thing you can do is throw a stun at the squishy and then one shot them with R. You can also throw your stun at the tank and stop the enemy's engage. [01:06:58] Speaker B: So an example of a burst mage who is bad against tanks. She's more of an assassin. But LeBlanc. [01:07:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:07:09] Speaker B: Does not do damage against tanks. Are there. Are there other ways to mitigate this? Actually though, there. That is another. Yes, there is. There's more than just build the entries also go blackfire if you are capable of doing it. The more dot that like you're. You're not gaining unless you are explicitly trying to blow up one target. With a Ludens black fire is almost as much damage. Getting dot damage is actually really helpful in keeping their healing low because their healing is going to keep going off, which means you're reducing that healing. Black Forest plus Leandries means you're getting your damage amp going off quicker. [01:07:46] Speaker C: So here's I gotta ask though, like, oh, all right. So. So LeBlanc, LeBlanc versus you know, four tanks and a carry. Right. Is that really your job? Isn't your job to. To take out the carry in that scenario? Like that is just not your job. [01:08:04] Speaker B: The question is, can you take out that carry? And that becomes a question of whether or not you can. [01:08:10] Speaker A: And can your team kill their tanks at all? If you have an Ezreal as well? Sometimes you just kind of have to also help blow up a tank. [01:08:21] Speaker C: Yeah, maybe that's it. I just, I don't know. Like a little bit of like you have a spoon. It does spoon things. [01:08:29] Speaker A: It does not matter how tanky they are. Five people dogpiling on one will generally kill that one always. [01:08:36] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I agree. [01:08:37] Speaker A: Like yes, you can find a Dr. Mundo highlight reel on YouTube of someone literally 1v5ing. Yep, I realize that exists Generally when mundo is fighting five people, he dies and he's the most 1v5 tank that exists. [01:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah. So. So as a whole, most burst mages do damage to tanks because they have not remarkably long cooldowns that do super high amounts of damage. Like LeBlanc is one of the the rare ones because she's more of an assassin than she is a burst mage. I think probably the single worst mage against tanks is Zerith. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah, he's very long. [01:09:20] Speaker B: He is very long with his Q because you're also charging it to try and give it range. His W and his E don't exactly have a great cooldowns. If you're using your alt near anybody, you're just. [01:09:31] Speaker C: And if you're so okay getting engaged on okay. Yeah. [01:09:37] Speaker B: If you're nowhere near the team fight, then all you can contribute is an ult. And if you're trying to hit tanks with an ult. Yeah, you can hit them five or six times maybe. [01:09:46] Speaker A: Alright, let's get. Let's get the rest of reigns questions in this batch out of the way before we wrap up tonight. He has two to go. This one I think is gonna be fast. General consensus agrees that Mid Lane is the most influential role in the game. Yet my games often feel like they are decided by the top lane. Am I feeling a false positive or is there a reason for this? There is a reason you feel that way. And that is because League of Legends is a game that can be lost by one person much more than it can be won by one person. Most of the games where top lane decides the game is because one team's top lane hard flamed out hard fed and made the game impossible for their team. And Top Lane is where that happens the most. [01:10:29] Speaker B: The other reason is that top lane is where split pushers who suddenly win a game exist. The reason why a lot of people say mid Lane is the most influential is because Mid Lane can do more. You. You have access to more of everything. You can get to topple, you can get to the jungle, etc. [01:10:45] Speaker A: Yep. [01:10:45] Speaker C: My only thing is that I actually feel that jungle's the most influential. That is like that. That is. I rest my case. [01:10:52] Speaker A: I. I'm more influential. [01:10:55] Speaker B: But it is. But. But Mid Lane has the potential to carry the most a Mid laner has the power to win a game more than most junglers do as an individual, not as what they have done throughout the game. [01:11:09] Speaker A: Yes, that. That is the reason that the mid lane is the most in demand role is because it is the one that is the most likely to be the star tiva roll. I say unfortunately because I'm a mid lane player who strongly prefers being a secondary carry. It is what it is. Alright, so he follows up. Actually a more important question. How do you properly deal with a proxy farmer? My personal view is someone who does it as a proxy farmer. I want you to come get me because as soon as you come after me you're losing minions against a proxy farmer. I don't deal with them until I've cleared two waves or so and my jungler happens to be in the area. Yeah, that's exactly it. You need to be a champion capable of not dropping farm while they proxy cause they're getting perfect CS if they're proxying. This is generally a top lane problem. People don't usually proxy outside of top lane. And yeah, you just. You also essentially proxy farm. You're just doing it in lane. You're completely safe when you do this. Like you're sitting right outside your tower proxying their wave while they sit in between your towers proxying your wave. One of you is in danger at all times while proxying and one of you is not. [01:12:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you'll also. You also notice it's specific champions who tend to be proxies. It's so like singed is the main one. Sometimes you'll see things like Udyr doing it. Occasionally you'll see like a Darius move forward and do it. Shaco's sometimes because he can like teleport. It's people who have either very very good fight or very good run. [01:12:46] Speaker C: The only thing I wanted to throw out as a noob carry. Try and see if you can get the support to come and like swap them. Because like sure for sure. It's jungler's job to go and deal with the problem. But if. If you go and get I in pro play I know supports come down and swap that away. And that's why they can't do it. [01:13:10] Speaker B: And so will the mid laner Also. [01:13:12] Speaker C: Like I bet like a mid laner and crap like that. Yeah. [01:13:15] Speaker B: The answer is tell your mid, not tell your mid letter. Hope your mid laner actually shoves. [01:13:21] Speaker A: Yep. [01:13:22] Speaker B: Because if they shove and you and your jungler and the mid laner collapse, they're dead. [01:13:28] Speaker C: They're dead. They're just. [01:13:29] Speaker B: Unless they. Unless they are God's gift to singed, they're dead. [01:13:32] Speaker A: And here's. Here's. I think the most important thing to think about it. If a singed gets giga fed, how does that warp the game versus if a tryndamere or nasus or whatever top laner you're playing gets gigafed? Because when they're proxying, you're also getting gigafed at the same rate they are. If you're a champion that scales better. That's just better for your team. Let them fucking proxy. Who cares? [01:13:58] Speaker B: So like the. The. The other real option here is take Lucian into it. You are now a ad carry who has permanent free farm in a top lane in which you normally are at a disadvantage. This is now a free extra ad carry line. [01:14:14] Speaker C: Lucian unchained. [01:14:16] Speaker A: I do want to caveat this with be mindful of your turret plates if you're playing someone who can't just straight up proxy the wave like Lucian. But that being said, yeah, just go Lucian top. You'll proxy their wave. You'll proxy their turret. All right, guys, this has been episode 497 of the Four Words Podcast. Seriously, we need more questions. Write in the4wordspodcastmail.com so we can answer the questions on the show. I've been Jack Selman for Mike and many names for Codex Ninja. Have a great night. [01:14:47] Speaker C: Night. [01:14:48] Speaker B: Good night, everybody. [01:14:50] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the four Wards podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our [email protected] theforwardspodcast. And of course, send your questions to [email protected] so we can answer them live on the show. That's the [email protected].