[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast.
Hey, what's up? It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven, Jerks and Velkoz.
And you're listening to the Four Wards Podcast here to help you move forward in league.
Hello and welcome to episode 511 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. It's the usual crew. We've got Mike of many names.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: I just had a brain hoard and almost closed Audacity.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: I'm glad you didn't. We would have had to start this over. We've also got Pillow Pet, who hopefully did not close Audacity.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Hello. Nope, Audacity still running.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: All right, guys, we are the Four Wards Podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. We've been playing a lot of normal games lately, and when preseason hits in the near future, starting next year, we're gonna be playing a lot of normal games to try to learn all the weirdness. So join the Discord so you can join in that fun. We also do stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV Jackson, where I'm still playing a mix of games but been putting more league again lately. Mike can be found at Twitch tv mikeofmanynames and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch TV pillowpet. And we're trying to bully them into streaming more because neither one of them does it enough.
[00:01:38] Speaker C: It's true.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Seriously, are you currently under construction? Do I need to, like, set up a vtuber for you guys? Like, make one in Vroid Studio? Is that what it'll take to get you to stream?
[00:01:49] Speaker B: That has absolutely no effect on whether or not I would stream.
[00:01:52] Speaker C: What would my vtuber even look like?
[00:01:54] Speaker A: What would I. Bald anime dude.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: Ooh, the bald eagle.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Bald eagle.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Well, I can say that is legaleagle.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Guys, we're gonna get to shoutouts. I don't want a tangent on this stream more. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to bully these two into streaming more.
Shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Skippius, Esquire, Labana, and Uncle Chrisco for supporting us at the shout out tier on Patreon.
Guys, we have a Patreon. If you 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 gets you that exclusive feed and we will shout you out at the top of every episode for as long as you maintain the subscription. And all of those benefits also apply to our general gaming podcast. Check out From 8 Bit to 4K on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Next episode will be dropping about two days after this episode drops and we talk about the game awards and our opinions on it. So check that shit out.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: It's beefy.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: It's beefy. That was a long one. We do it bi weekly because sometimes we just ramble for two hours.
Guys. Last but not least, we did have questions this week so you don't get disappointed. Dad Jacks, we need more questions. We only have about two weeks worth so right into the theforwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer your questions on the show or drop them in the Discord in the question submission channel. But I prefer if you email them. Alright, our topic for tonight, it's a quick one, especially since Mike doesn't play ranked unless he's playing it with someone. The season's near the end. We got two weeks, three weeks left, three weeks I think left in the season. So we're going to check in and see how this season has gone and what we're doing and all of that. And I'm gonna let Pillow kick it off because I think it'll make my transition funnier. Pillow, what have you been doing in ranks? You've come back to it.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So the other night I was just messing around while we were playing some games with some of my buddies and I was like I'm gonna play some mid lane. I was getting kind of tired of top lane and I decided to start trying out Galio middle. And the reason I play Galio mid is because he is a tanky boy. He's not your typical mid laner with the mage type or assassin type he play. He's got the playstyle that I like.
Excuse me.
And I just. That started to pique my interest a little bit more on playing some ranked. I was like all right, I'm going to pull him, pull him into some ranked. And so I did just that.
It was really funny how the first ranked game went. I hovered Galio and my support hovered pike and we swapped or he, he swapped the later pick and the enemy team picked pike and then so he swapped me for a later pick and then the enemy team picked back Galio. So that was just really funny. So neither of us got to play either of our champions.
So I ended up going like mordekaiser mid and dominated a Galio and I was just like oh man. You know, top laners are really good in the mid lane. Like just stat wise they're just good. That's just a good place for them. I'm sure that's going to change next season.
It may be. I don't know, we'll see how it plays out. But that just got me even more excited to continue to play mid because I can just play my top laners mid. I just have to be smarter about my matchups.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Lane quests are gonna determine that one.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm dreading Sion mid. But now he gets an empowered recall from his tier three boots and constant demolish because Sion mid is already way the fuck too strong. I'm so sick of seeing that shit. I had to play against one recently. I wasn't even playing mid lane because I'll get to that when I talk about mine. But he just loses lane and still takes turret because mid laners aren't equipped to deal with what Sion does.
And I think Galio is kind of in the same boat except he's actually intended to be a mid laner so he's a little more balanced for it.
[00:06:02] Speaker C: He's still like. He's got everything that a mid lane nerd hates to like go against. He's got engage, he's got lockdown, he's got lots of clear speed like so they can't shove or bully him under a tower.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Low mana cost.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: Clear to very low mana cost. He's got several builds he can go which most of the time it's just like hollow radiance and I think what riff maker into some other AP stuff and. Or you can just go straight tank and just be a bully.
There's several paths and all of them are this as oppressive as the next. It just depends on what your team needs.
I'm been enjoying mid lane. I'm having fun with it.
Currently I am sitting at. Let me get back to it and I'll tell you.
Currently sitting at Platinum 497 LP. My goal is to if I keep it up, try to get to Emerald.
I've only got 70 games total this season and I'm sitting at a nice 37 win, 37 loss. So I'm at the perfect place to kind of start. I'm kind of just neutral so my MMR can go either direction. I'm pretty even on my LP gains, I was looking, I'm getting like 25 to 30 LP a win. Same with my losses. So I'm right where Riot thinks I need to be. So I'm gonna see where.
See if I can beat that and get back to Emerald like I was last year.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: So on that note of how long you have real quick, you have 23 days, so almost four weeks. This will be going until next year.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Right. With three weeks then. Because three weeks would be 21 days. I was damn close with my guess.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's almost next year. Actually it is next year. It will go into. So this will. The season will continue into January.
When this season ends, I am almost immediately assured that it's going to immediately flip into preseason. Yep.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Assumption is season ends and the very next day we get the preseason patch. And it might just be the new season patch. They might not actually have a preseason.
[00:08:09] Speaker C: Say last year we didn't even have a preseason. They just jumped right into it. Yeah, they skipped all.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Drop all of the the new shit and just here now play ranked on the new shit suddenly.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: I will say that some of the new items are currently in the game.
Like on a ramp, like you can get like the gun blade and a couple of the other new items. Yeah, they've been testing some of the form.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: We'll find out.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: So I'm pretty excited. It's been a while since I've had the want to like just play solo duo by myself especially like I'll play it with buddies or something, but like just to go in and play the game on my own solo, like to have that drive back is kind of nice.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: So on that note, as our resident solo queue grinder, we're the same rank right now. You want a duo buddy so we can just fill both solo lanes. I think we should because while he's dabbling in mid lane now, I switched to top lane. And the reason I switched to top lane is very specific because I actually don't like top lane very much. But in my games, for whatever reason, top laners were half of all of the tantrum throwers. You know the type, the oh my lane didn't go perfectly. So I'm going to throw a fit and start running it down every lane and make the game impossible to win instead of just sitting under my turret and collecting what farm I'm allowed and hoping my team wins. For me, that was literally 50% of all the people who did that in my games were top laners with me playing mid or jungle. So I switched to Top lane. And it's been working.
I've been winning a lot more because sometimes I just straight up curb stomp my lane. I've had a couple of those where I just fucking giga stomped my lane and that was that. I destroyed a Gwen as Volibear. I destroyed a Renekton as Mordekaiser, which Mordekaiser should never win against Renekton early. Frankly.
I've been playing Maokai a lot and people just don't know how the fuck to deal with Maokai because no one plays him in the top lane.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: I was watching one of those games and it was the most ridiculous healing game I've ever seen.
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Okay, you saw the game I just played of Maokai that got me into plat again.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Maokai versus Volibear. Yeah, yeah, that game happened.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: There was quite literally there. Volibear was the strongest person on their team and him and I spent 30 seconds fighting each other in the bot lane while our teams fought around Baron where my job was to make sure he couldn't teleport to the Baron and neither of us could do damage to each other. It was glorious because all of Volibear's damage is spells. So he would trigger my passive every three seconds and I'd heal for a thousand life every three seconds. And he'd be hitting W every three seconds which would heal him for a thousand life. We couldn't deal damage to each other.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: And between that and the shields that he would gain, it's like it was absolutely disgusting. And that game, like I started talking about it, it went open Nexus at least twice.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: It went open Nexus once and then like all three inhibs twice. Okay, yeah, it was ridiculous. But I made it back to Platoff. That game. That game was a crazy win. I can't believe we won that game.
But sure enough, I play top lane. I'm not gonna baby rage. I've had some fucking terrible top lane games, including specifically top lane games where my jungler trolls me and causes me to lose the lane that I was not losing.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: That game.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: That was one of them because holy shit, that vi inted my lane so fucking hard. But I'll play it out. I'm gonna do my best to win despite the bad situation I'm in. I won a game on Kayle where I went 47 because I got absolutely bodied by a Shen who just absolutely beat the ever loving fuck out of me. He was good. Didn't matter. I didn't tilt. And eventually I got to be late game Kayle and that's I think the difference for me is just having a top laner that doesn't always win Lane sometimes does but doesn't throw a tantrum has fixed my win rate to be back to roughly 5050 and than the games when I can actually make a difference I win and that's enough to put it over the top. I went from Gold 4 to Plat 4 in the last three weeks so I'm slowly fixing my rank from the great trollining of 2025 that I suffered because remember I was Emerald 4 seven months ago.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: It's been one hell of a rollercoaster watching these games.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: I've played 600 games of ranked this year. Guys. Don't. Don't. Don't be like me. Know when to quit.
I shouldn't still be playing ranked this late in the year but I am alright.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: I mean this might be a hot take but this is one of my favorite times of the year to play ranked. I like the end of the year ranked because everything is a mess and it's fun.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: It's either the best but you play.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: Top lane where the baby ragers are.
So you're not a baby rager so you're having a better time.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: True.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: That's why I'm suddenly having a better time as I've removed the baby ragers from being in my games by taking.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: Their role by next episode my opinion might change and I might move back to top lane. We'll see how it goes.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: If you continue playing duo then it's a non issue.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: If you continue playing top layers in the mid lane, you may end up experiencing the problem where mid laners eventually shut you down. Depending on the mid lane in question, you you play a very specific breed of champion that works really well into about a third of all mid laners.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: I'm just saying Pillow Sion is your second most played champion this year in ranked Scion Mid has a 53 win rate right now.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: There we go.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: He's actually just straight up op.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: That's my next that's it. Galio and Sion. That's what I'm ending the year on.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: I'm not even kidding just play Scion Mid. Most mages do not have the tools to beat him.
[00:14:10] Speaker C: Well I mean just out of most of them just with Scion too like just Tank Scion he just becomes unkillable and I mean granted he'll come to the so like just now that you talked about Scion I played a quick clap. We real quickly we did clash this weekend and I Had a game where I played Scion and at one point like I tanked all five of the enemies for like a good 25, 20, 25 seconds. And they just eventually killed me. But it took them a very long time and several flashes.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: I tanked the entire team so many times in that Maokai game, it was absurd. I wish you could see the healing done on the League of Graphs listing. I'd have to actually launch the client to see my healing. But my healing was.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Let me tell you, I. I'll go find it.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: All right?
I mean, I can just pull up the client and do it. Yeah, but I'm already here really slow.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: You did 35,000 healing, which is insane.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Like that's actually stupid. How much did the the janna do?
[00:15:12] Speaker B: 29,000.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So I healed more than the enchanter support.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Was it a rock or was it.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: A shadow wide AoE heal? He was shadow assassin.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: He did 34k.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: Yeah, but junglers cheat. Also true junglers don't count in that. Unless they're a healing specific jungler. Alright, let's. Let's answer some listener questions. Our first listener question tonight comes from Uncle Chrisco.
And you'll know this question is a couple weeks old because it is. Hey, Wards with today's announcement that the new season will take us to Demacia and give several champions Demacia themed skins. Which champions would you most like to see get a Demacia skin? My totally objective and non biased pick would be Skarner. But what do you think, Karen?
That would just be. That's an April fool skin. That would be Garen Garon.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: Garen Gary.
[00:16:01] Speaker C: Garen Garon.
Bad. I'm gonna. I'm not sure. Do you guys have anything?
[00:16:09] Speaker B: I want it to be someone who's like unaligned with anything.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: No, I have an answer and it's very stupid.
I would want both Demacia versions of Noxious Champions and Noxus versions of Demacia Champions.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: That could be really cool.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: That would be fucking cool because then you're specifically playing with the like how does this character fit into literally their antithesis archetype.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: So you're thinking like a noxious. Noxious themed like Darius against.
I'm sorry, I'm thinking like that'd be awesome. That's what I want to switch color palettes and everything. That'd be cool.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Switch color palettes, switch armor stylings. Because Nox's champions have a very like rough, sharp, aggressive armor styling. And Demacia Champions have a very like protective pal kind of vibe. Yes. Royal is a good way to describe the. The vibe of their armor. I would love to see that just flipped.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: That would be cool.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: I'd like. That's what I would pick some weird Demacia ones. Like, give me Lilia for Demacia.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:17] Speaker C: I was thinking some weird ones, like, give me a Yumi Demacia.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Noo doo.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Like, a little. Little Yumi floating around with, like, a Garen helmet on.
Or she's sitting in a Garen helmet. Or he doesn't even wear a helmet.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: But she would just be riding around on Lux's wand instead of on a hook.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: That'd be funny.
I think, like, doing some, like, zaun ones would be cool.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Like, give me a twitch 1Damasia Twitch.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Do the Void creatures and.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: But the thing is, every time one of these Demacia skins alts, they gotta yell out Demacia.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Absolutely. So on that note, then my answer would be Karthus.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Just AOE's everyone.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: I just wait a global announce of Demacia in, like, the best metal voice they can do.
[00:18:07] Speaker C: That's what we need.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Full on. Demacia Penta kill Karthus. That's what I want if we're going with that idea. All right, our next question tonight comes from Anonym, who writes, is there a checklist to help you decide when you're ready to take a champion to ranked? What do you consider? I'm currently unranked. If that changes the answer, there probably.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Should be a checklist, but it's all by feel for me. Yep.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Here's. Here's the thing.
Are you ready to take the champ into ranked? Depends heavily on what is ranked to you. Because for me, the answer of am I ready to take a champ into ranked? Is do I feel competent in my ability to pilot the champion? That's it. That's the entire checklist. Because I have a fundamental understanding of what everyone's role is in the game and how to adapt. Oh, well, Now I'm playing LeBlanc. Well, I know how to play Assassins, and I know what the playstyle is supposed to be. So I just need to take my mechanical understanding of LeBlanc and adapt it, and it's fine. Don't look at my LeBlanc win rate. It's not representative of my LeBlanc play as a whole.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: The win rate's trash. And you'll see the games, and he'll be, like, 15 and nine.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: It's stupid. And, like, seven of those nine kills are in the last 10 minutes of the game when the enemy team finally realized that I was the only person trying to win the game on my team. It's so I think the important things for most people to think about when they're thinking about should I take this champion into ranked? Is first of all, is it the right circumstance to take the champion into ranked? If you're manning a champion and you're winning all the time on that champion and you're not bored of them, there's no reason to pick up something else in ranked yet. Unless it's banned. And maybe that is the circumstances. You have your thing, you've been practicing in norms, but you're still playing your one trick in ranked. Oh well, it got picked away from you or it got banned.
Time to pull out the number two that you've been practicing in norms.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. As, as an unranked player, my advice to you is get fully comfortable. You're fully comfortable in every phase of the game. You're comfortable landing. You're comfortable in the late game scenario. You're comfortable in the mid game scenario on at least three champions, two in your main role and one in an off role.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: That is my baseline. Before you do anything into ranked. To add champions to that list becomes the same basic thing. Are you completely comfortable at all points in the game on them? And then it can become man, I'm just not feeling playing this one right now. It doesn't look like it's a good game for me. This one would be better over here.
But like Jax and I are completely unique in that neither of us have a champion pool that we explicitly stick to. We just sort of.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: What we feel is needed.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: In the scenario I mentioned that I've played 600 games of ranked. I've played like just looking at the champions I've played 10 times or more. There's like 20 of them. And that's not just because of the role swap.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: There's. That's four different roles. Representative practice.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Don't do that if your goal is specifically to gain rank, by the way.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Otherwise like it's. It's the same thing with just feeling comfortable with, with the game as a whole. If you're not comfortable playing the full game out yet, maybe it's not time for ranked.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: But also the other answer is just you're currently unranked. What have you got to lose?
Just play. Just play and have fun.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: It's a video game.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: If, if you currently don't play to win the game, if you play to have fun in the game, randomly that is the point where you stay in normals and don't go into ranked. People take ranked way more seriously and then people become worse people because of it.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: Yes, Mike, if you had to guess a number, how many champions do you think I have played in solo queue in 20? 25?
[00:22:08] Speaker B: 75 total.
[00:22:09] Speaker A: Damn, you're close.
72.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: Oh wow. I was real close.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: You were really close Last year that number was like 50. I am a crazy person. Don't be like me.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: For the record, there's only 170.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: I'm not saying this was the entire cause of it. What's that?
[00:22:25] Speaker B: There's only 171 champions.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So I've played like more than a third of the entire cast in ranked this year.
I'm not gonna say this is the entire cause of it because I definitely had some questions. Questionable matchmaking on my descent. But I guarantee my playing too many champions was a contributing factor to why I dropped from emerald to gold.
Guarantee it. So don't be like me.
Alright. Our next question comes from horsegirlenjoyer who writes this question might be more for discussion than anything, but here goes. I am playing Seraphine Support right now and I'm having a lot of success on her over 70% win rate over 28 games. I looked online and a lot of people recommended Echoes of Helion her since she can proc it pretty quickly and even though I understand the reason I've been going redemption because I think it fits me better. My question is should I keep doing what fits my playstyle better or should I do what is standard and just get good?
[00:23:18] Speaker C: Do what you enjoy and what's working for you.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: The most important question becomes is the circumstance still correct? It seems like Heckas of Helia works for your circumstances more sometimes redemption way around but yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, sometimes Echoes of Elia will be a better pick. Sometimes redemption's gonna be a better pick. Always relies is the best pick and then going into those things.
I hope that's your second. I think we're talking about not your first one because realize should hopefully be your first rush.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: I mean from support. If you're going a redemption enchanter, if.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: You'Re going full enchantment but it's fine as Seraphine I think you're missing a little bit of what you can bring to the table and you could probably push that a little higher.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: You should just play Sona if you want to be the enchanter version.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: If you're a full enchanter, go Sona instead But Seraphine excels at this hybridized support slash mage thing.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Now, that being said, I think you've hit on something that a lot of people are recommending based on their idea of how a game works.
Redemption fits what Seraphine does perfectly because she is a hybrid caster enchanter. She ults a teamfight and immediately throw redemption down on the people you ulted and you will heal your allies while damaging the enemy. Because everyone is clumped up in your ult. Your allies are trying to kill them while they're charmed. Like, Redemption is fucking perfect on her. Also hot take. Echoes of Helia is a fucking terrible item, and I wouldn't build it on anyone.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: So the reason why Echoes of Helia is probably less.
It's actually very good for Seraphine.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yes. Is because objectively it is.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: It's. You're doing more damage and then rarely doing the heels. So you're always getting the max stacks on Echoes of Helia. So you're actually gaining the most benefit out of Echoes of Helia that any champion will get out of it because of how Seraphine works because her w is on such a long cooldown.
Redemption, like. The other reason is that it also gives a little bit of ap. So that's another benefit to it. Whereas Redemption doesn't. It just gives ability haste.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: I mean, you say that because of Helia. The reason I think it's a bad Item. It has 35 AP.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: It's not much AP. It also does not literally is one.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Of the lowest stat items in the game. It doesn't give heal and shield power. It doesn't give meaningful amounts of ap. It has a little bit of health. It has a lot of ability haste.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: I echo Echoes of Helia because it synergizes well with how her kit is supposed to be played because she has poke damaging spells and the long cooldown heal that procs the healing portion of it to trigger it. So she gets the stacks and then spends them in an efficient, smooth manner.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: It's also because most of the supportive items do not work with her. Well, Arden Sensor is not good because you don't do enough shielding. You're. You're doing a very rare proc on this.
Same thing with Moonshot Renewer. You're already doing aoe healing and shielding. It's all happening at once.
Imperial Mandate is probably the second best one of them. If you're going for a kill lane because you're going to be slowing and immobilizing people all of the time. That flowing water has the same problem that Arden Sensor has.
So like of the item Imperial Mandate.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Also has actual AP on it. Yeah, 60 AP.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: I would go for Rely's Redemption and Imperial Manate is your core three items.
That's that's your support trio. And then if you make it to that that point in the game, maybe Mikhail's. If you're having a heavy CC thing and you know how to use it.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: And let me make the best case I can for why I think you are building correctly with Redemption. Echoes of Helia. If you do a two stack consumption of the passive proc, which is the best you can do, heals for 130 and does 100 damage at level one.
Redemption is better than a full single proc of Echoes of Helia. And redemption is AoE level one. It still does 10% damage as true damage instead of magic damage and heals for 150 per person in the AOE as opposed to echoes of Helia. That is single target.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: The trade off is it's on like a two minute cooldown. But case in point, like but Echoes.
[00:27:46] Speaker A: Of Helia is on the W cooldown which is non trivial. You're getting maximum two procs of it in a teamfight.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah, pretty much. So like this is why of them.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: And I would take Redemption over two procs of Echoes.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: Redemption is inherently probably stronger. It's got the same health, same ability, a little bit more ability, has an Echoes of Helia a little bit more mana regen, which might be the other reason people are going for it. It's a higher mana regen item as well. And your mana costs are not trivial.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: But I think you're doing right by going Redemption. I think it's a better item on her.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Plain and simple.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: I I you have, you have gotten to the point where you understand why items are being built. And that's a good point to be in because now you can look at that and question why, why is this so popular? And I think it is because, well, they saw someone do it, so they're doing it.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Exactly. And also because Echoes of Helia does not require you to target it. It doesn't require skill to use the way that Redemption does.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: You can if, if you fail to.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Use Redemption at the right time, miss aim it.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. If you don't use unused items, Redemption is quite literally worse in every case.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Yes.
But as long as you're like literally just throw it down on your ult when they're charmed, you'll heal your allies. You'll damage the enemies. It's way more damage and more healing than Echoes of Helia can ever possibly give.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: But also to generalize the answer a bit, if what you're doing is winning you games, keep doing what you're doing. If what you're doing stops winning you games, consider why and make a change. Whether it's changing your build, changing your champion, changing your style that you're doing something. Because if you're not winning games, you need to change something. If you are winning, you should keep doing what you're doing until it stops working.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: I would I'd love to actually watch one of the games just because I'm a big Seraphine fan and I like watching people play league. I'm a good fun backseat player. Pop in the discord some point and do it. Do like a discord stream to people here. I happily check over and like we can talk about why it may be that you're just winning because Playstyle and Seraphine is that strong and you're loving it. There could be a ton of other reasons and maybe we can optimize things more. You could be perfectly correct on every run and then we can just cheer you on from the background.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: Fair enough. All right, let's get one more set of questions. These come from perennial question writer Reigns who writes hi warts. Happy end of season, happy preview of next season. Some top lane centric questions when you need them. Why are bruisers and juggernauts the easiest class seemingly to carry games with with the context of in top lane?
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Because tanks don't carry damage.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: Exactly.
Juggernauts and bruisers have health and damage. They that's what their role is to they're a carry an ad carry but in the top lane.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: Yep. It really is that simple. They're they also tend to be lane bullies against the other classes and lane bullies are a good way to carry solo queue.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: When tanks provide too much damage they knock that shit out real quick. Yep.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Usually.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Usually there's been problems with the ornn does still exist Ornn still exists but the biggest problem for it has been that fucking.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Oh God.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: I had a good kasante game recently champion.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: I had such a good k' sante game recently.
Yeah he is a problem still they.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Have done the best possible fix which is you have no control over when you leave your alt anymore. The best fix they've ever done to that easily.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Like he's such a better balanced champion for the game. Not like in terms of is he powerful or not but like now you can ult and it is a mistake. Alright, question 2. Why is Gragas in the top lane so prolocked and not a consistent carry pick in solo duo? Especially in low elo where it seems like his kit should thrive.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Because your ult is so dangerous in the wrong hands, you can easily save lives with that thing.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Or more commonly and worse, you can kill your teammates by giving the enemy juggernaut a gap close into them.
Yeah, like that happens a lot.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: The biggest problem is how volatile and how much knockback that thing gives. It's a massive knockback and people are not good enough to predict where people are moving in low elo. And so not having good prediction means you're throwing it. And they could be now beyond that point. And now you've just delivered a Darius to the backline.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yep. In general, high volatility champions do not do well in solo queue. The way that you would expect.
Gragas is high volatility. Except at pro they're so fucking good that most of the volatility is removed because of skill. It's the same reason like Lee Sin is never out of pro, but unless he's actually strong, he barely exists in solo queue other than being really popular.
[00:32:55] Speaker C: I was gonna be say, like, I think some of the reason you also don't see Gragas a lot in solo queue is just because he's just not a popular champion either. A lot of people forget about him and Dole.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: He's just a fat drunk man for a lot of people. And that's not an aesthetic. A lot of people like, yeah, a.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Lot of people are like, no, it's not a hot chick. I don't care.
All right, so question three. If a champion is only good in specific niches, is the best place to learn how to play them in all scenarios they're one trick ponies or are there other better sources for low elo players?
It depends on the one trick pony.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:33:29] Speaker C: So I see your example with God Renekton and Fogged. I know God Renekton obviously plays Renekton Fogged as a Trinomre main.
I don't know who I Main, Top or Kangaroo are.
I don't watch them.
Another source, I've. I think I've mentioned it before for like if you're specifically like Renekton and he'll play other new champions and do builds and stuff solo Renekton only he does have a lot of.
He will sometimes, a lot of times explain while he's doing things on his video uploads not so much on his streams. Specifically his YouTube videos. His streams. He's not very informative in teaching. He's more toxic and yelling. But his YouTube uploads are really good. He's gotten a lot better in the years. But his YouTube uploads are usually pretty knowledgeable.
[00:34:23] Speaker B: So you're talking about niche champions. Like if you're not planning on one trucking a champion. A niche champion is niche for a reason. If you want to learn to play it, you're not going to be learning to playing it in all scenarios because you're not going to be wanting to play it in all scenarios. It's a niche for a reason.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Yep. And it really comes down to you want an educational source. Just watching someone play the champion really well is not necessarily going to teach you what you need to do to learn that champion. I would actually recommend not necessarily Alois specifically because unless you're looking to play Riven or mundo, he's not really the greatest source. But the way when he is playing and streaming and doing his YouTube videos where he will talk through why he's doing things, the why is the reason. He is a good educational source. So if you find a streamer who will talk through, oh, this happened. So I'm going to do this as he does it or I did this so this will happen. Those are the things you want to know. So you can then start implementing that knowledge into your own games.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: There was a pro that used to be incredibly good with educational things that had made a mistake. So I won't be promoting them for a while until they fucking fix themselves.
I'm not gonna be talking about who they were anymore. That is the kind of education you need to be. Finding pro sources can be that education.
Sometimes there are just people who do like the people who frequently do. Unranked challenges are also good sources of that information because they play a ton of games in a lot of different ranks. So they frequently have commentary about different ranks.
My favorite of those is Hussy Gaming. He's very good at giving education and he plays in a lot of different roles. Primarily top lane right now. So you can see some stuff there.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I will say I don't think that player has a career anymore, unfortunately. Yeah, it's entirely his own fault.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: But yeah, so I'm not promoting him anymore.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: He was a great resource until he decided to be a dumb fuck. All right. It's okay. Reigns knows who we're talking about.
Last question from Reigns here. Playing a ranged top laner such as Teemo Kayle, any mage or AD carry top always feels like a gamble because you help you carry the game at the cost of your team comp. With ranged tops inherently having low or just inconsistent inbuilt comeback ability, why is this gamble ever worth it? I assume it has something to do with champion mastery.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: No.
You've named very different kinds of champions on that top lane.
Yes, one. Kayle in the beginning is not a ranged champion in the worst part of her lane. So like, she does not play like any ranged champion for the beginning lane phase, which is so dangerous.
The reason why people play certain range tops most of the time things like AD carry tops or TEEMO are played because you can bully out bruisers early on before they have an ability to get on top of you and beat the shit out of you.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: Remember 15 minutes ago when we talked about juggernauts and why they're so dominant in top lane? Ranged tops are how you prevent them from ever being dominant in the first place.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Kayle, however, is a hyper carry. She's a hyper scaling hyper carry. There are very few champions in the game who can do as much damage as a Kayle at the end. That is just how her kit is designed. That is how she functions. She scales incredibly well with levels, which is why she has to be a top laner instead of an AD carry.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: But also because she just would not get farmed pre 6 if she was.
[00:37:58] Speaker B: In bot la crazy in bot lane. But it also like most mages, dunk on her early game so she can't go into mid either. So Kayle is a unique scenario here because that, that, that, that ramp is. It's an exponential ramp.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Yep. So here's the other variable. Remember I mentioned earlier why I switched to top lane toplaners Fucking tantrum. If you bully them. The reason to play a ranged bully toplaner such as Teemo is because it lowers the enemy morale when their top laner is calling for ganks and crying and bitching and telling his jungler that he's shit because he's died for the fourth time and his jungler hasn't fixed it yet. That's the reason to play range tops. I played a game of Vayne top for that very reason and it went great. Despite me not having actually being that good at vayne.
[00:38:52] Speaker C: But the opposite happens too. If you pick top lane range, then you lose all of a sudden. Now your enemy, your team morale is just shot. Whether.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:39:01] Speaker C: Just because you're a range top laner.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Most. Most range top laners excluding Kale and like two others, they are worthless if they don't win that lane. You. You can't go into anywhere else and start farming your 80 carries. More important, he already has more cold. Your mage isn't going to let you take their stuff.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: Incidentally, both of the Vain Top games I've played this year were into Juggernauts, specifically to say fuck you to those juggernauts and make them not able to have fun. That's what they're for.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Of course there is an exception to this rule, which is if you just play Lucian Top, then you do it all. You split, push, you take buildings, you kill the enemy. You just win the game. Because Lucian Top is Lucian Top.
No reigns. You don't get an unironic Lucian Top. You should never actually play Lucian Top unless you're against a gangplank. And then you still probably shouldn't. But that's our meme. We're sticking to it. It's been on this podcast for hundreds of episodes. Guys, this has been episode 511 of the Four Wards podcast. I've been Jack Sohlman for Micah. Many names for Pillow Pet. Have a great night.
[00:40:02] Speaker C: Good night.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: Good night, everybody.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our
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And of course, send your questions to the Four Wards podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.
