The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 520: Underplayed, Part 2!

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. Hey, what's up? [00:00:08] Speaker B: It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven Jerks and Velkoz. And you're listening to the Four Wards podcast here to help you move forward in league. Hello and welcome to episode 520 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host, Jack Selman and I've got the usual suspects with me tonight. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:47] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:48] Speaker B: And we've got Pillow Pat. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Hello. I am here. [00:00:52] Speaker B: You are here. [00:00:53] Speaker A: Definitely not a walker. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Sure we are. The four Words podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. Come play Aram Mayhem with us. It's so much fun. Link is in the episode description. We look forward to seeing you in the Discord. And some of us do stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV jacksoman, where it's still a mix of League of Legends and Super Metroid content, but it'll be Path of Exile starting Thursday, Friday, whenever the new league launches. Mike can be found at Twitch TV MikeofManyNames and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch TV Pillowpet, where both of them have been streaming recently. Because guys, we have been playing Terraria in a group playthrough. So make sure you're in the Discord and follow our Twitches so you'll know when we go live and you can come watch us play Terraria because that's also a lot of fun. [00:01:38] Speaker C: It has been a lot of fun. It has been a little bit tough streaming because, you know, I'm perpetually sick. [00:01:43] Speaker B: But yeah, hopefully that'll eventually go away. We also want to give a shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Skippy, Esquire, Labana, Uncle Chrisco, and Yeet the dab for supporting us at the shout outs here on Patreon. Thank you guys. You're keeping this podcast on the Internet, guys. Speaking of which, we have a patreon. Patreon.com theforwardspodcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. And $10 a month gets you the exclusive feed and we will shout your name out during the intro of every episode. And all of those perks also apply to from 8bit to 4k, our general gaming podcast. You can find that wherever you get your podcasts. Last but not least, listeners, you guys are being carried by the Discord. Again. We didn't get any Questions in the email, write into the 4wards podcastmail.com or into the question submission channel on the Discord. But I prefer the email with your questions. We can answer your questions on the show. We try to get to at least a couple listener questions every single episode. [00:02:49] Speaker C: Thank you for how much you've been asking questions on the Discord like that. That's been a giant chunk. That's been good to see. Yeah. [00:02:55] Speaker B: If, if it's easier for you guys to ask the questions there, I'd rather you ask them there than not ask them. It's just easier for me if you email them. Significantly easier. But it's fine. Guys, our topic tonight. So two weeks ago we started this. We are going to talk through some of the more underplayed champions and explain what they do, how they work so you guys can maybe know what to expect. Because even the least played champions in the game, you'll still run into about one in every 50 games or so. So I'm gonna make Mike kick it off with the simplest mage in the entire game. [00:03:35] Speaker C: I don't know how she's one of the least played champions in the game. I honestly don't understand how so few people are playing Annie. Annie is the ultimate beginner's first mage, but also is one of the oldest champions. She is like tied for the top. Original 40. She is ancient, which I guess is a bit of it. But she has had minor tweaks and reworks to some of her stuff to make her more modern. So Amy. Oh, Amy. I'm trying to think of how to properly describe Annie apart from just Baby's first mage. But really it's Baby's first mage. She is the simplest mage you can possibly play. [00:04:19] Speaker B: So explain what she actually does. [00:04:21] Speaker C: So her passive is is very, very simple. It's just every four spells. The fourth spell you cast will be fourth damaging spell you cast. So your Q, your W or your R will become a stun in addition to everything else it does. [00:04:38] Speaker B: That's it important to note. Her E can stack this, it just can't proc it. [00:04:42] Speaker C: Yes. Now we say this. We'll. We'll go in and describe what each of those is real quick. Her Q is the easiest thing in the game. It is a point and click damage button. I'm going to deal damage to this thing. It's a good stuff. It's a fireball and if it kills the target, the mana is refunded. Her W is a mildly short range mid range cone of fire in an area just boosh fire Damage. Her E is a shield that Annie can cast on herself or allies, which is new. One of the newer portions of this part, a lot of people don't know. You can cast her E on other people. E gives a tiny amount of speed, and anybody who does any attacks or spells to the target of the shield takes damage back. And it is a shield, so it does block damage. And then her R. Her R is the most famous thing about Annie. It's Tibbers. She has a targeted zone in a relatively large area that slams into the ground and summons a giant flaming bear that beats the out of things. If anybody kills Annie, Tibbers bolts at them and tries to kill them. Tibbers does radiant AOE fire damage around him. But most of the damage in most of Annie's damage is in her burst. Her combo is you can do the entire combo EWQR to instantly get all the stun proc and etc. You can space it out, do just a couple Qs, throw it out there. But, like, she is a very straightforward mage, and I guess that is both to her benefit and her detriment. You can very, very easily tell when Annie is going to try and stun someone because it's blatantly obvious when she gets her stun. So you always know what she's going to try and do. Counterpoint. It's really hard to stop the W or the R because they're effectively instant. So. Oh, there. There is another part of the R that I forgot about that. That is a new thing. She gains extra magic pen with ranks of her arm. So Amy is tied less to magic penetration than anybody else. However, if you give her more magic penetration, you get ridiculous tank shred. [00:07:04] Speaker B: That's what I was gonna say is she's also the burst mage that is the best at actually dealing damage to tanks. [00:07:11] Speaker C: And she does radiant damage, too. So, like, it's not as if she can't do multiple ticks of damage, but she's really centered around. I go in, I burst the fuck out of something, I walk away. [00:07:24] Speaker B: She also pretty much always builds malignants, so she's gonna have that extra burn on top of her other burn. This is because when Tibbers is out, it just continuously reprocs malignants until it dies. [00:07:37] Speaker C: It's a lot like Swain. It's real. It's. It's her strongest item. Her swain and a couple other people. Just like malignant says, they're hardcore item. Karthus. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Yep. Any other thoughts about Annie? She is really Straightforward. [00:07:53] Speaker C: She is sometimes and has actually more often in recent years been used as a support because she has such a reliable long range stun. [00:08:02] Speaker B: And this is why they tied the penetration to her alts because this is a lever they can use to tune her where mid lane which gets higher experience can be more powerful than the support role for her. [00:08:14] Speaker C: I think she's as, as we've been talking about. She's here. She's massively underutilized. Not only is she actually easy to play, a lot of people seem to forget how fucking strong she is. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Yep. [00:08:26] Speaker A: She has moved up quite a bit in the list since the last time. [00:08:31] Speaker C: Now she's also got not by what. [00:08:32] Speaker A: She's still very low. She's still. She's at 19 now. So our, our list is a little dated. If you guys are following along and you're trying to look these up, our list is going to be skewed because it is about as opposed to weeks [00:08:43] Speaker C: where she was before. She's at 19. So she still would have been on this list, just not where she is right now. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah. The goal was These are the 24 lowest play rate champions. Not like a numbered list. We're not trying to do them specifically [00:08:57] Speaker A: in order but they, I imagine most of these champions are going to stay floating around the same area unless somebody gets like a massive buff. [00:09:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Or actually one of the. One of them is about to change, I'm betting. [00:09:11] Speaker B: So that one's. [00:09:12] Speaker A: Yeah, here we go. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Let me transition to that then. Our other fiery champion on this list, Shyvana currently has a terrible play rate as Mike said. That is about to change because the Shyvana rework as we record this is like two days away we think. Right. It hasn't confirmed the date that it's coming out yet. So they could delay it if they find a game breaker at last second. But barring something unforeseen, she'll be reworked in a couple days. [00:09:38] Speaker C: They've been posting a lot of stuff indicating that she is coming. [00:09:41] Speaker B: Yes. However, they have shown us the rework. We don't know the numbers yet but I can still explain what she does because what she does has not changed. Shyvana is a bruiser. Her passive stacks armor and magic resist. Her Q is an auto attack reset that applies on hit, effects her W, gives her run speed, does damage around her and when the rework hits gives her a shield. Her E. She breathes fire. She shoots a fireball. This is a skill shot. It is just a line skill shot on live. It stops on the first target. And marks them and then you deal on hit damage to them. When the rework happens. We're not sure exactly what it's going to do yet. It may just be a damage spell and that's that. And then her ultimate turns her into a full dragon. Requires Fury to use. She cannot generate Fury until level six. When she levels up to six and skills her ultimate, she instantly is placed at 100 fury. We believe this is staying the same. Riot has shown Fury in the rework, so we assume this is still the case. While she is in her ultimate, all of her spells are empowered and she is stronger. Like just stat wise as well. She also, in addition to transforming, gets to do a dash to a target location. I believe with the rework, it will apply a fear to targets hit by the dash. Right now it does not. While she is in this. Yes. While she is in this form, she starts draining her fury. When she runs out of fury, she turns back into a human. She can refill her fury with auto attacks. She gets 2 fury per basic attack hit. This is an on hit effect. So her Q hitting multiple targets or hitting multiple times means she gets more. So if you can stay in combat, you will usually stay in dragon form. That's true on live and I expect that to be true with the rework. Now for the reworked version, we're not sure exactly what the details of the queue. We know it's getting an extra use. So her reworked Q is going to be an auto reset that can be recast, I think for a second auto reset, but we're not sure. They didn't confirm. [00:11:51] Speaker C: Currently there's two right now. [00:11:52] Speaker B: And then the empowered version gets a second recast. [00:11:57] Speaker C: So this is like [00:12:00] Speaker A: Camille. Yeah. [00:12:01] Speaker C: The hit. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Yes. There's several champions with these. We just. We're assuming it's an auto reset on the recast, but they haven't actually said so. Honestly, I can't remember what her W is going to do in the dragon form that's different than the regular one. It's stronger in some way. It heals her. [00:12:18] Speaker C: As long as you do deal damage to a champion with the final burst of damage, it heals her. [00:12:22] Speaker B: Okay. Her E fireball will continue through target struck and leave burning ground beneath them. [00:12:29] Speaker C: It explodes on champion contact as well. [00:12:32] Speaker B: Yes. So lots of AOE potential if you can get it. Tightly grouped people. Like she's going to love having an Orianna on her team. [00:12:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:40] Speaker B: Because Orianna pulls everyone together and then she breathes fire on them and they all die. I'm not giving you guys any numbers because we literally don't know the numbers for the rework that's dropping in two days. But that's a basic overview of what she does. We will be covering her rework in more detail in a week or two [00:12:58] Speaker C: if you want a funny bug or at least a whoopsie by riot. If you go into her champion page in the next couple days before it gets reworked. They never fixed the video for how her E works. It's still the ancient Aoe E that does the cone. [00:13:15] Speaker B: That's pretty funny. All right, Pillow, your turn. [00:13:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So I got Kled coming in next. KLED is a top lane bruiser slash, juggernaut slash. You know, however you want to build him. He's got multiple build paths, but typically he's just going to build the, what, Titanic, Hydra, [00:13:39] Speaker B: the ad health, classic items. [00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, yeah, you got Black Cleaver. He's not very popular. And I don't think it's because I don't think he's a bad champion. I think he's hard to play. He's got one of those weird passives, one of those weird abilities that you have to not use. Like, it makes it to where you can't auto. And that's one of the abilities. That's his W. His W gives his, like, next three attacks after an auto or dirt, like the first auto, second auto, third auto empowered, and does more damage, increasingly more damage, I think, per Auto. And it's kind of hard to time it. Like, a lot of times people wait to level it up to, like, cheese and be able to use it. He's got. He's got a high skill cap, I would say, is why he's not as popular, which is what the theme is with most of these champions that we always talk about on this list. His cue is his bear trap. He throws a trap out on a string, grabs onto someone, latches onto someone, and after a few seconds, it, like, kind of displaces them and pulls them towards Kled. It used to. I don't know if it still does. It used to apply grievous. I don't know if it still does. I think they took that out. [00:14:52] Speaker C: I think they still. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah, they. They took that out. And then his E is a jousting. It's a dash. You can. If you hit an enemy with it, and it has to be an enemy champion, you can get a chance to recast it, and it'll dash back towards that champion. There are some cases where it can go over A wall. Like if you cast it and they flash, you can cast it again and it'll take Kled over the wall. And then his passive is he's riding his little lizard Skarl. And when he takes Skarl's HP bar, he's got two HP bars Skarls in itself. One when Skarls runs out, he gets dismounted when he falls off his Q, then turns into a shotgun. He shoots at someone, does like spread damage like Graves autos. If you hit enemy champions, he gets courage and builds courage to get Skaarl back so he can remount. He gets a movement speed towards enemies. His W stays the same. His E is nothing and his ultimate is only also usable while he's mounted. And he pretty much just charges an enemy, gets a shield and leaves a path for your allies that give you increased movement speed. [00:16:10] Speaker B: To be clear, when you say charges an enemy, we should probably explain how this works. [00:16:15] Speaker A: So you select an area, it's not targeted. You select an area of the map and he goes that way. Whichever way that the computer decides is the fastest way. It's like a gps. Whatever way the computer thinks that it thinks it's going to be the best route there it takes. That way you don't get to control the route. [00:16:35] Speaker B: And importantly you will lock onto and attack whoever the first champion who gets in the way of this charges. So enemies can intercept it to cut it short or to prevent it from getting onto their back line by stepping in front of it. [00:16:50] Speaker A: Yes, Kled's pretty fun. Like, I really enjoy playing him, mainly just because I under. I understand Kled. I've been playing him a lot or I've played him a lot. I don't play the typical builds. I like to go damage because that's where like I feel like he's very strong. Cheesy is early with like you especially you can get. There's a weird build going around like storm strike, hull breaker, storm strike and death stance. And it's really strong. Makes him really tanky and does a lot of damage. So I like building damage and crit. Not well, not necessarily crit, but like that lethality route that's always been my favorite builds on him. Just really strong, does a lot of damage. Monster like ganker in the side like Roamer. He can easily robe and disrupt team fights. Especially that movement speed. So your enemy team, like your allies can get in to teamfight quake. [00:17:51] Speaker C: So there's two other things about Kled that we haven't really talked about. One is he is one of the only True mana less champions. Nothing does. He's a full cooldown based champion, so everything he does is completely mana less. You don't have to worry about it. And then he is one of the people who has an untargetability. When he pops up and down on Skarl, he becomes untargetable for that point. Which means he loses things like tower aggro. So his skill ceiling because of you not being able to control that is incredibly high. [00:18:26] Speaker A: He is great at diving towers for that dismount reason. Because he drops aggro altogether, it's. He doesn't drop it on the remount. He only drops it on the dismount. So I just make sure that's. That's important note. So you can't just like dive them again for a remount and you only on the dismount. But it's very strong. [00:18:45] Speaker B: The. The remount does not have any untargetability at all. [00:18:49] Speaker C: Yes. [00:18:50] Speaker A: They've recently changed his remount to where it used to have a slight delay. You could still kill him before Skarl ran to him, but they've actually changed it to now. Like it's instant. Like he gets it's instant now. Or you do not really get a chance at all to kill him if he gets the remount. [00:19:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Scarlett is one of those very peculiar champions. Like, he's. He's weird looking. He sounds kind of funny. He's not as typical. He has none of the anime style that a lot of the other characters may have. He's kind of ugly on purpose. He's a weird guy. [00:19:25] Speaker A: He's like. He's like some. I forget his lore. He's got pretty cool lore, but he's just like that cranky, Southern, get off my lawn kind of guy. Old man and like. But he fought in a war, so he's kind of. [00:19:39] Speaker C: He's one of the like three evil. Like actually evil. Yordles. [00:19:46] Speaker A: He's something. [00:19:46] Speaker B: He's fun. [00:19:47] Speaker C: He's very fun. [00:19:48] Speaker A: I like him. [00:19:49] Speaker B: All right, Mike, change gears a bit. Tell us about Nidalee. [00:19:54] Speaker C: Okay. This is a champion who I fully believe deserves to be on this list. And in fact, Joe should probably be even lower on it because less people should play Nidalee. Why do I say this? Nidalee is one of the single most difficult champions to properly pilot in the game. She no longer has any place outside of the jungle. She's. She's not good at any other things. She can't really support. She can't mid. She can't really top anymore. Can't do any of the carry roles. She has to be a jungler. Why is that? Well, it. It's. It's the way they've retuned everything about her kit. Her passive is Prowl. I mean, she gains a bunch of movement speed while going through bushes. And then if there's an enemy champion, she moves even faster to them. And then the second half of Prowl is if they are hit by her Q or her W, you trigger this thing called hunt. You get true sight. So if they stealth, you still see them. You gain increased movement speed towards them. And the abilities take down and pounce, which we'll get to in a minute, are enhanced. Nidalee is one of the champions who does not truly have an ultimate. She starts with her R. Her R is aspect of the cougar. And what it does is this. This is the. The like core power of Nidalee. Nidalee bounces back and forth between being a panther lane, whatever the she is, and a human. And her Q, W and E are completely different throughout each of those forms. We'll start with all human formabilities. Her Q is a very long range javelin, very narrow. The longer within that like range it takes to hit something, the more damage it does. And I did not know this. It does slightly more damage. Oh no, no. I'm looking at the wrong part of this. Never mind. It's hard. This is hard sometimes because she has two halves of the same ability. So sometimes they overlap and I mix seeing things. Her W in human is called Bushwhack. And she. She drops traps. Traps do a little bit of damage and reveal and they enhance. This is like the core part of her jungle. They enhance her other W and Q. This is one of the main ways to get it. Her E in human form is a heel that also gives attack speed. So well, once you've healed something, they get a good chunk of attack speed. I think it's like baseline 30 and it goes up. It doesn't scale with AP. It scales with levels, I believe. Because otherwise it would be truly ridiculous. And then the other half of her abilities, the cougar form. Now her Q becomes takedown and it is an auto attack reset. And she does really large damage. That does more damage the less health they have. So this is an actual execute button. Her W becomes pounce. Pounce is a mildly unique jump in that it has a static cooldown. There's. There's. It is one of the things that is not really affected by ability. Haste, which is kind of weird. But it really needs to be that way. Otherwise Nidalee would be able to jump everywhere. All the time. Pounces. As I said, it's a dash. It hops. It does damage in an area. Once you have marked someone and they have hunt on them, you get a very long range enhanced jump that will leap you directly to that target. This will go over walls in both cases. Obviously, because of the range that her regular pounces, it can't go over every wall, but it can go over a lot of walls. Her E becomes swipe. It's a big aoe claw in front of her. [00:23:41] Speaker B: Okay, so an important note about Nidalee. All of those cougar form abilities Mike just said specifically scale their damage with ranks of her ultimate. So it does not matter with whether you've put points into Q, W or E which one you've maxed first. In cougar form, the damage is just based on your R ranks and then your stats. Obviously. [00:24:04] Speaker C: Also a little unintuitive, but yes. Like this is one of those things where you go, but I've been leveling Q. Why aren't I doing more? [00:24:11] Speaker B: This is the weird distinction for Nidalee compared to other transforming champions like Jace and Elise Transform. But their abilities are scaled based on what they've put points into. Not so for Nidalee. [00:24:24] Speaker A: I always get nervous when I see a Nidalee in my games because either I'm going to get destroyed by a one trick or I'm going to get fed. Or we are either either going to. They're either going to feed the enemy or they're going to carry like. There is no in between. There are no like middle of the line. Nidalese [00:24:47] Speaker C: is such a weird champion because she has. If you are good at Nidalee, one of the fastest jungle clears possible. If you are not remarkably good at Nidalee, it becomes one of the most mediocre clears possible. [00:25:02] Speaker A: She's a very risky pick. So this is one of those champions. You need lots and lots and lots of practice games on before you'd ever take her into ranked. [00:25:12] Speaker C: This is one of those 200 games before you touch ranked. I'm not kidding. I don't touch her in ranked. And I play her. I like Nidalee. She will never be in a ranked game of mine because I don't basically one trick her. [00:25:26] Speaker B: Basically the same boat Kalista's in. Last time we talked about underplayed champions. If Nidalee is ever actually good in the hands of an inexperienced player, she is oppressive to an unreasonable degree in the hands of a Nidalee master. So she is pro jailed. [00:25:40] Speaker C: If you want to see why Nidalee is a disgustingly powerful champion, play her in Arams. When you get her without the shackles of what a normal game is, you can start to see why Nidalee is bullshit strong. Getting the free gold that she can get through Abraham, the abilities, easy team fights. She's very, very powerful if you have the hands. Exactly. And she's like one of the hardest to do. Decision by decision, point by point. Everything you do matters. Unless all you're doing is playing the Q poke game, in which case all you're doing is throwing long range spears and praying you hit something which is the weakest form of Nidalee possible. And you can still do like 80 to 90% of somebody's health in one cube. [00:26:27] Speaker B: Yep. If you hit a near max range Spear, it does 450 +150% AP almost. It actually can go a little higher than that if it's truly max range. [00:26:38] Speaker C: She is a disgustingly powerful champion in the right hands. And this is something that, like, we have talked about this before. This is a not just a pro Gel champion. Most pros can't play her correctly. Yep. This is. [00:26:51] Speaker B: There's a handful of people in the world that can actually play Nidalee at the level that makes her as disgusting as she can be. [00:26:58] Speaker C: This has grown throughout the years. Nidalee wasn't as bad as she is now because of the amount of skill that people have. And because of that, the amount of skill it takes to pilot Nidalee at the highest level has continued to escalate in a, like, exponential curve. So there are, like, crazy, I think probably seven people in the world who can play her at world level. [00:27:21] Speaker A: I think the crazy thing about what you just said, Jax, is there's a handful of people that play her and pilot her well. Those are spread within all ranks. Like, there are people, like, I'm not going to say like iron and like bronze, but like, you start getting like, gold and up. Like, there are. I've seen some people pilot her and I'm like, that is insane. Like, this has to be a Smurf. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Most of them are. She's a popular Smurf champion because a diamond Nidalee can do disgusting things in a gold game. Like, truly outrageous, disgusting things in a gold game. But no, when I say there's like a handful of people in the world who can truly play her optimally, I mean, like, canyon and a handful of Other pros and then maybe like two one tricks in challenger solo queue across the world. [00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah, she is not one tricked like all on the challenger scale across the world. That is how rare it is to [00:28:17] Speaker A: see her popular right now. Her highest mastery ranking for the season is 334 games. One person played 334 times. So that's. I mean, for as long as the season's been, that's not very much. [00:28:30] Speaker C: That's. That's minuscule. Jax, you have almost that many games, don't you? [00:28:34] Speaker B: Not yet. This season sure feels like it sometimes. [00:28:38] Speaker C: You're probably at like half that. [00:28:39] Speaker B: God, how many games am I actually at? I'm nearing a hundred. [00:28:44] Speaker C: Okay. It's all right on that. And he's played a ton of Path of Exile. [00:28:48] Speaker B: Yeah, more in a few days. All right, Pillow, it's your turn. Talk to us about Karthus. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Ooh, Karthus. I mean, I don't think Karthus really needs an introduction. I think most people know about Karthus, but. So Karthus is the original inting scion. I would say. No. Karthus is one of those champions that has the passive where they get stronger in death. Karthus is, I think, other than Shin, probably has the longest cooldown on his ultimate. Let me pull him up here so I can. [00:29:28] Speaker C: I believe it's Karthus. And check. [00:29:30] Speaker A: Yeah, there he is, number nine right now. All right, so his Q is where he. He puts down the little bomb circle on the ground. If it. It. If it does isolated damage, it does more damage. If it hits more than one champion or one target, it does normal damage. It won't isolate. His w is the AoE that drains Mana constantly around him? No, does taking damage. [00:30:01] Speaker C: That's his. That's a Z. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Did I say W? Oh, sorry. I'm looking at the skill order, so. No, his W, sorry, is the wall that. It's just a slowing wall. That's all it is. Each rank, it grows in length and [00:30:17] Speaker C: it also reduces slow. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Does it reduce, Mr. [00:30:21] Speaker B: Okay, 75%. [00:30:23] Speaker A: 25% for five seconds and are slowed by an increasing amount. Depend on rank up to 80%. 40 starts at 40, ends at 80. And as E is the AOE swirly does ticking damage. Make sure he doesn't do anything else. [00:30:42] Speaker C: It does. [00:30:43] Speaker A: Nope, that's it. [00:30:44] Speaker C: It does. [00:30:45] Speaker A: Restores mana when it kills somebody. [00:30:47] Speaker C: No, no, not just when it kills anything. Anytime he kills something once, he scales it so he can just auto attack and get a kill. [00:30:55] Speaker A: And that gives you automatic it's the passive on there. [00:30:57] Speaker B: So I am noticing it doesn't say while it is toggled off anymore. Does it have to be toggled off to give mana back anymore? Because it used to? [00:31:08] Speaker C: I don't believe so. But also the amount of drain versus the amount of mana he gets back is significant difference. [00:31:17] Speaker B: Yes. I just know this ability used to be you had to toggle off defile to get the banner return. So you would run yourself oom very very fast if you used it for wave. Clear. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Yeah, he loses mana very quick with this. [00:31:31] Speaker C: It does sound like it is one or the other. You either are gaining mana from kills or casting it. But that is the wording on just this. It doesn't explicitly say so this is something that we can test in a heartbeat. [00:31:44] Speaker A: And his ultimate is the. I can't. I think it's like Requiem of the Dead or something. [00:31:49] Speaker C: Just Requiem. Yeah. [00:31:50] Speaker A: A requiem. It is a global true global. Targets every champion enemy champion on the map with a pillar of doom that does a lot of damage on an extreme amount extreme cooldown. Unless you got a spell shield or a Zhonyas. A true spell shield. Sorry, like a true spell shield. Yeah, like Banshees. Etc. [00:32:16] Speaker B: Fair enough. Any. Any other thoughts about Karthus while I go into practice tool and see whether he's very simple? [00:32:24] Speaker A: Like, I mean he is a very simple champion. He's reason he's so low is because again for like the most of these he's got a very high skill gap. Like he. He can. He played mostly in the jungle and he is very easy to counter in the jungle because he is very very weak to counters. [00:32:42] Speaker C: But he's very fast declaring. He is very fast clearing fast. [00:32:48] Speaker A: But he is very prone to getting countered because a good like someone that knows the role understands that if a Karthus is in his jungle, you want to. You want to mess with him early because late game if you let him scale, he's very dangerous. I mean if I see it and I know as a top lane if I see an enemy Karthus jungle, I'm trying to go find that free kill. [00:33:10] Speaker C: So there are a couple things to talk about with Karthus. Like. All right. During his passive nothing cost mana. So you can freecast spells. [00:33:18] Speaker B: So I was able to confirm in the practice tool he does get mana back while the E is active now. [00:33:24] Speaker C: Okay, interesting. [00:33:26] Speaker B: That did not used to be the case. [00:33:28] Speaker C: Yeah. With. With his death. Unlike Scion, he is untargetable, untouchable. So you can't stop him from casting. You can't CC him. He's just dead. But he's still doing stuff. [00:33:38] Speaker A: He also. He also can't move. [00:33:40] Speaker C: Yes. He is stuck in location. This causes the most common use of his ultimate, which is, oh no, I've died. Time to cast R. Because you. [00:33:51] Speaker A: You can see 3cc him. Yeah, it's a 3 him out of his alt if he's alive. Very fun to play in Mayhem. [00:33:57] Speaker C: Very. Yeah. A good Karthus is a terror to behold because they understand how to use his Q, his E and his wife, which are actually like, everyone knows Karthus for his ultimate, the Requiem, the Big Boom, and his passive people properly utilizing Q, E and W like during his normal mode. That's where his skill expression is. And a good Karthus is scary, but also a good Karthus is really rare because it's. It's very hard to pilot that and a lot of people just don't want to put the time in. [00:34:27] Speaker B: Here's an important note. Regardless of whether you playing Quick Cast, normal cast or Quick Cast with indicators, Karthus Q always functions in Quick Cast mode. It will go off when you press the button. This is one of the very few abilities in the game that this is true for. [00:34:44] Speaker C: Yeah. So this is one of those of the reasons why a lot of people don't immediately start with Karthus. He's not an inherently friendly champion because you're auto forced into Quick cast. I never noticed that because I've been playing Quick Cast the entire time. [00:34:59] Speaker A: It's also one of those champions that seems to always have bugs, like when new items and builds come out. Like there's one time where you could cast an R while in base and like sell all your items and buy all CDR and then undo. And it was like you could get your R on like a 30 second cooldown. [00:35:18] Speaker B: Fair enough. All right, let me talk about our last underplayed champion. It's our marksman for this one. Kog' Maw is not very popular and I understand why. Kog' Maw is an extremely vulnerable support Reliant Ad carry. Kog' Maw also is one of the highest DPS champions in the entire game. So I'm going to talk about him as a marksman and then I want to briefly segue to him as a solo lane mage before we move on to listener questions. [00:35:46] Speaker C: He, like, Kog's passive is. Is one of those. They are shackled to the ancient design philosophies. So, like, his passive is not useful at all. In modern world. [00:35:59] Speaker B: So his passive. When he dies, he becomes a walking bomb. And you can walk around for four seconds and then you blow up and deal true damage wherever you stopped after those four seconds. If you don't die, you don't have a passive, which is fine because that means you didn't die. On kog', Maw, one of the most vulnerable champions in the game, kog' Maw's Q passively gives you attack speed. It's the reason you rank it up. The active portion. You shoot a projectile and a line skill shot, and the first target it hits loses some armor and magic. Resist his W. This is the what makes him a good champion as a marksman gives him increased attack range. And as a matter of fact, if you get all the ranks into it, he has 710 attack range at max rank, which is 60 units farther than Caitlyn. And he actually matches Caitlyn at rank 2. So long range during his W. And then also during his W, he does on Hit percent max Health magic damage his E. He pukes goo on the ground. It's a line in front of him. It slows everything it hits. And it does magic damage if it hits them. So long area. Yes, it is a long line. [00:37:13] Speaker C: Both the Q and the E are really long range. They're essentially his max W range. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah, he is an artillery champion because his ult is literally called living Artillery. He shoots a projectile up into the air and then it lands at a targeted location and does damage and does bonus damage if the target is low health. So it has an execute mechanic. It also has a stacking debuff. This is similar to how like Kassadin works, where the mana cost ramps up per cast. But there are no benefits for kog' Maw on this. It is just a mana cost penalty if you spam it. So the thing that makes Kog' Maw scary is that W he does at max rank, 6% max health magic damage on hit. Kog' Maw builds on hit Marksman items always. He's not a crit marksman. And when you get him a Blade of the Ruined King, a Kraken Slayer, a Rageblade, he can DPS down anyone if he can keep them at arm's [00:38:15] Speaker C: length like those three. That's it. That's all he needs. Yeah. [00:38:20] Speaker B: A common build on kog' Maw is literally Blade of the Ruined King, Rageblade, Terminus Jack show, and another tank item. Whatever tank item is appropriate for the game because at the terminus point, he's Got three attack speed on hit items and that's enough for him to kill anyone in a couple seconds if he's at allowed to just stand and shoot them. So you get more value out of buying some tank stats to be able to not die. [00:38:43] Speaker A: Fun fact with Kogmaul. Not sure if it's still true or not or if it was a bug or it's intended within the first few seconds. I believe of his death. You can still like melee auto with his passive. [00:38:57] Speaker B: I believe that's been fixed. It was a bug. He is not supposed to be able to. [00:39:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you are definitely not supposed to. [00:39:03] Speaker B: But to give you an idea of how insane his W damage is, Vayne's Silver Bolts, which is like the the gold standard for tank busting, do 10% max health true damage every three hits. Kog' Maw in that same three hits does 18% max health magic damage. So almost double what Vayne does. But it's magic instead of true damage. [00:39:27] Speaker C: Yeah, Cog is every hit. Now Kong is also one of the like unique, truly unique AD carries in that he has a full alternative playstyle. [00:39:38] Speaker B: Yep. So all of those abilities function the same whether you build AD on hit or ap. But he does have a mage playstyle. He has good AP ratios. His q is a 90% AP ratio. His ult which has a 1 second cooldown at max rank has a 45 AP ratio at max rank. And that goo he spits on the ground has a 65 AP ratio at max rank. Which means if you just play AP kog', Maw, which is usually played mid against mid laners that can't bully the out of him early. He actually does a lot of artillery mage damage. And then his W the max health damage scales per 100 AP. So if you have 500 AP cool. You do 13 max health per auto. And now you doesn't matter that you. Yeah, it's I. It is not as good. It is intentionally not as good as Marksman kog' Maw generally. But if you're playing mayhem or if it just makes sense in the game context, AP kog' Maw can be a night. And again that ALT has an execute mechanic. If they're below 40 health it does double damage. So that's a 90% AP ratio. Kog' Maw's good, but because he is so vulnerable with a slow as his only form of any kind of self peel, he's not popular. And he's never going to be popular because if he was popular he'd have to get nerfed. [00:41:09] Speaker C: He's also a creepy void monstrosity that vomits everywhere. [00:41:13] Speaker B: Yes. Which I love. I love weird monster champions. But for some reason, many people who play this game literally only want to be attractive human characters. Their loss. [00:41:26] Speaker C: Yeah. But like, yeah, kog', Maw, he has no movement speed buff. He only has one slow on a relatively long cooldown. Yeah, it's an AOE slow. It actually goes through targets. That's its saving grace. [00:41:37] Speaker A: You guys remember when his W made him stationary? [00:41:41] Speaker B: I do, and I'm very glad it doesn't anymore because that was scripter heaven. [00:41:45] Speaker C: It was. Kog' Maw is one of the two champions who has had 100% reverts on reworks. LeBlanc is the other one because his rework was so busted. In the right hands. In the wrong hands, we should say that it could not be combated against because kog' Maw was one of the people who they decided, you know, we've always basically had him as this long range attack speed bullshit person. Let's make it so that he can break the attack speed cap by double. Back when the attack speed cap was two and a half, they allowed him, while you were in W to hit five. You just couldn't move. [00:42:23] Speaker B: And to be clear, it's not that it rooted you, it's just that you shot so fast you couldn't move between attacks. [00:42:29] Speaker C: Yeah. It's also a slow. I think it was at the time it slowed you intentionally, but that doesn't matter when you're stutter. Stutter stepping. Yep. [00:42:39] Speaker B: And that's why it got reverted. Because scripters at the time were using scripts to automate all of that. And they could just walk normally at the slowed movement speed while shooting you five times a second. And it was broken. We're glad that's gone. [00:42:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:54] Speaker B: Alright, there's some more underplayed champions. We'll be back in two weeks with the next batch. Guys, let's answer a couple listener questions before we wrap up tonight. Our first question tonight comes from Uncle Chrisco, who writes. Hey, Wards, Uncle Chrisco here with a question that I'm having a hard time conceptualizing. Since last November, I've been playing nothing but Aram Mayhem relentlessly. It's at the point where my total game experience is probably 8020 in favor of Mayhem. Yesterday I finished off the Aram progression track and am now looking to get back into the base game to mix things up. My problem is now I don't know what experience and knowledge I can take from Aram and apply to normals and ranked. This ranges from game knowledge and mechanical skill all the way to role in champion choice. Before Aram, all I played was jungle Skarner. But now I've tried so many champions that were so fun, I have no idea what role I would even want to play anymore. Especially considering how differently they would all play in lane versus in aram. this point I'm seriously just considering playing Phil and punishing the first hundred or so teams that I get put on until I relearn how to play. Any advice? Yeah, do that in norms. [00:43:56] Speaker C: So here's my first bit of advice. Slowly transition backwards. Go from Mayhem to regular arm games and that way you still have hey, I now can get the actual feel of what a champion does because Mayhem does warp your perception of what a champion can do, even though what they're doing is usually pretty much the same [00:44:15] Speaker A: most of the time I'm gonna say just like when, just jump back into norms like it's not a big deal. Like you can go into norms, you don't have to play Skarner. You can play any champion that you're like been playing in a ram and be like man this champions be fun. Sure it's going to be a little skewed because you probably don't have 500 ability haste and 7,000 armor, but I mean it's still going to. You're still going to. The champion is still the same. You're still going to enjoy it. So just hop in the norms. Like if you win, you win. If you do, if you lose, you lose. Like just have fun. Doesn't have to. If you like, it's going to feel real bad going into an Arab after a room Mayhem. I'm going to be honest. And as far as like it's not so bad experience experiences for Mayhem to bring in the norms. Like you're not going to have any other than what you've enjoyed about a champion. Like you've got to try new champions and that's wonderful. That's probably, you know, what a ram was intended for originally. So it's great that you've got to experience new champions and you're probably more comfortable on champions and have more knowledge about champions because the games are faster, you see them, you play a lot. So you're going to take that knowledge in as far as what champions do, but as far as gameplay mechanics, don't even think about it. Like it's not going to transfer at all. [00:45:37] Speaker C: Yeah, the thing you're looking to transition is the knowledge of what they can do, not like the frequency at which they're capable of doing things. Like, you've probably seen Swain a couple times, so now you know what abilities Swain has. You know, the Q, the E, the W, the alt. But you don't know how strong he is during them or what the cooldowns are or what the actual damage is, but you know what they are on a baseline so that you have a concept of what you're basing. Same is true with what you can [00:46:09] Speaker B: play, but really, the answer is just spend a lot of time in Norms to re acclimate to Summoner's Rift and bounce between roles. [00:46:17] Speaker C: Now, now that you've. You've done this, like, figure out what your new role that you like playing is. Now that you've done more things, you may find out jungle was just the crutch you had. You may find out jungle was the best thing ever. And you want to go back to it. [00:46:29] Speaker B: Yep. All right. Our next question comes from Toast, who writes, I have a list this time. How does the spawning of Kindred's mark work? Like, is there a way to know in advance of where it would spawn? [00:46:40] Speaker C: No. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Kind of yes, if you know how many stacks she has. So I'm gonna explain. I promised in the Discord I would explain exactly after looking it up, how this works. If Kindred has. If Kindred has zero stacks, it will spawn on Rift Scuttler. That is the only place it can [00:46:59] Speaker C: spawn which one it will spawn on. Because it always spawns on. The first double is completely random. You have no control. [00:47:07] Speaker B: But that means if you're able to deny that first stack off a Rift Scuttler and she doesn't get one off of a gank, you know the next stack will be when the Rift Scuttler spawns, or if the second rift scuttler hasn't been killed 45 seconds after. After the. The first one was killed. This is why a strat for Kindred, if you get unlucky and it spawns the mark on the scuttle that you don't have pryo over, is to just leave the other one and hope that it doesn't get taken before the mark respawns on it. Because a lot of Junglers will just assume, oh, well, I got this one and never saw sign of the enemy jungler. They must have gotten the other one and not check it. Very common occurrence. However, if Kindred gets an early gank and is already at one mark by the time Rift Scuttler spawns It may not spawn on Rift Scuttler, because if she has 1 to 3 marks, it can spawn on Rift Scuttler, Raptors or Gromp. Once she reaches four stacks, it cannot spawn on Rift Scuttler anymore. It cannot spawn on Raptors anymore. And it cannot spawn on Gromp anymore. It can spawn on Krugs Wolves, Blue and Red Buff. That's it. From four stacks onwards, those are the only camps it can spawn on. Which means if you're against a Kindred, literally, all you have to do is make sure your Krugs and Wolves are cleared on cooldown and your buffs are taken on Spawn. She'll never get a mark off your jungle. And then if she reaches eight or more marks, it can only mark Epic Monsters, Rift, Herald, Baron, Dragon, Elder Dragon, all of those. [00:48:44] Speaker C: Which means she doesn't have to ever touch a thing in your jungle. She can get all of those marks just from ganking and only have to deal with neutral objectives. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Yep. So the other part of it is she marks a player. She has to been out of combat for six seconds before she's allowed to mark them. And if she successfully hunts a marked player, she cannot mark them again for four minutes. That's it. Only four minutes. Which is why a common strategy for Kindred players is to pick one dude who is just not gonna have a good time and literally gank him every four minutes. Alright, question two. How valuable is it to go for Invades for Kindred's mark? Or how do you know an Invade is good to go for until you're at the point where you can duel the enemy jungler and you have Prio in the lane so you know it's actually gonna be a duel and not just their team collapsing on you. Don't. Just don't. [00:49:41] Speaker C: You need to understand invading to properly play this half of Kindred. If you are not like fully understanding pathing invade movements, how to deal with the enemy as they come and try and deny you. This is the biggest trap for Kindreds in the game. [00:49:58] Speaker B: It's. It's really easy to get fixated on your marks that spawn randomly in the jungle and get yourself killed over and over. When you can just mark players and then 30 seconds to a minute later when they've forgotten about it, gank them and get marks that way. That is the intended play pattern. [00:50:17] Speaker C: I do have to say, if you are already like you've done an invade, you've got nothing. No marks popping up. If you're already there and you've made the mistake you need to get that. Because if you don't take that mark, it's worthless. If you lose that mark, your. Your entire movement is gone. And she scales with marks very powerfully [00:50:38] Speaker B: now because you know which camps can spawn with marks and which ones cannot. If you see the enemy jungler on the opposite side of the map, when you know that your timer to spawn a mark randomly in their jungle is about to come up, you can just walk to the camp that is most likely to be it. So for example, let's say you're sitting at three stacks. It can only be raptors gromp or scuttle. If you see the enemy jungler bot and you've warded their gromp er, Raptors gromp and scuttle. So you warded their gromp. You see them bot, you just walk over and oh look, they're gromp spawning. Oh look, it's a mark. Those are the way to get invade marks on Kindred is you want to just arrive at the camp that's going to get marked before it actually spawns and before it actually gets marked. So you just collect the mark immediately because the longer it's sitting there, the higher the likelihood that it has been worded and is a trap or the enemy is on their way to it to kill it because they're. Most people are just looking at kindred marks going, oh, this is marked. I better go clear this camp. So kindred doesn't get it. And that's their entire thought process. [00:51:48] Speaker C: It's a pretty heavy thought process. But it's also like if you see it, you should take note. Yeah, either. But that means ready to deny it with vision or bait it or just take it. [00:51:59] Speaker B: Yep. But the important thing is knowing the order of operations of what can spawn a mark and warding those camps so you know when they will respawn. So you can just arrive on their respawn and kill them before the enemy has a chance to react to the indicator. You need to know what is going to be marked before it actually is. Okay, on that note, he continues. How do you track the enemy jungler throughout the game? I hear jungle tracking talked about a lot and I've seen some people in my games pinging where the enemy jungler would be during their clear. But I'm not sure how to effectively replicate that. Is it just warding Raptors or something? [00:52:35] Speaker C: That's a start. If, if you're not like completely up on it, that's a great start. Just ward a camp so you can see them taking the camp lane Avenues are a different thing that you'll eventually want to get on. But like, this specifically, this is a great way because Invisible Evelyn still has to take camps. Twitch still has to take camps. Shaco still has to take camps. So warding around the camp is the safest way to understand a rough idea of pathing. This is the first shortcut, like just getting a ward in there. Anytime you have a spare ward, pop the ward on. Raptor is one of the big ones because Raptor is a nice zone and it's quick to take. [00:53:18] Speaker B: Yep. So the. [00:53:19] Speaker A: I'd say another. [00:53:20] Speaker B: Go ahead. [00:53:20] Speaker A: Sorry, I was gonna say another way. And, like, I'm not a jungler, but how I do it is I just assume where I'm at, they're either going to be identical or mirrored. [00:53:32] Speaker B: For the first couple years especially, this is very shockingly accurate. I have literally pinged my laners off ganks just by virtue of, okay, I'm going to my sixth camp. I'm on the opposite side of the map. I know they started, like, across from me. So they're gonna be here, ping this dude. And sure enough, five seconds later, their jumbler comes out of the woodwork to try to gank that dude. [00:53:56] Speaker C: Part of this is knowing where people start their camp clears, because champions start camp clears very routinely. Most of the time, there's a very specific place you like to start because it's your opponent optimal start to give you the most efficient jungle clearing. This starts becoming a mind game in, like, Plat plus where you start camps, because that's really like the outside of invading, which is its own separate thing. But like, the. The. The how I'm clearing my jungle versus how you're clearing is a mind game as well as an efficiency thing. [00:54:30] Speaker A: But, yeah, to be able to track, you just gotta know where the jungle's starting. And then, like, from there, it's just kind of like you'd have to say thank you. Like, if you know for a fact they started on the same side as you, and they're exactly right across from you. If you're thinking of ganking top lane or looking to gank top lane, they're probably looking to gank top lane like Abby does. Especially, like Jack said, for the first few clears, it's always going to be like that. If you mess up their tempo, it's going to change. And then you got to start thinking, okay, they just died. Oh, where would you go back to? Like, as the jungle? Where would you go? [00:55:05] Speaker B: So this is the other reason that warding camps Is so valuable. If you see when a camp is going to respawn, you see when the enemy jungler is likely to go to it. Most people don't leave camps up for long periods of time. So if you've warded their raptors. Oh, you see. Oh, Raptors are respawning in 10 seconds. Their jungler will probably be at those raptors within the next 30 seconds. [00:55:29] Speaker C: The other portion of this is if you see the camp go down, you get true information on when it comes back up. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Yes. [00:55:36] Speaker C: So you now have the power to. I know this camp is coming up in 13 seconds. Exactly 13 seconds. I'm gonna go take it or I'm [00:55:45] Speaker B: gonna go catch him going for it. [00:55:46] Speaker C: Or I'm gonna go catch him going for it. That's right. [00:55:49] Speaker B: That. That one's big. Like, especially. You're talking about kindred. If you're. If you're at the point where you. You think you can duel the enemy jungler, and you've marked the enemy jungler, you want to be warding his camp so you can be waiting for him when he comes to the next one, Wait for him to spend a spell or two on the camp, and then suddenly, oh, by the way, I was just waiting here in a bush, and you're dead now. [00:56:08] Speaker A: And one that you might not have thought of. If you're serious about learning, this is go watch some of your vods turn off the fog of war. Or even you could play with fog of war on and be like, hey, I think the jungle's right here. Then turn it off. [00:56:25] Speaker C: You can do that. [00:56:25] Speaker A: Okay, I was right there. Like, you can watch and watch where that jungle is going, and then, like, learn from that. Then go to another vod and take what you've learned and see if it matches up. Like, see if there's a pattern to these jungles that you're in and then that you'll start to learn those. Those. Those patterns. [00:56:43] Speaker C: Realistically, one of the first things you should do is if you are serious about, like, pushing jungle, you need to know the start of every jungler's, like, main jungler's routes so that you know this is a champion that's going to. If you don't know what Warwick does, you don't know where he's starting. If you know what Warwick does, you go, all right, I know he has to start either on Grompura camp because he can't do the multi camp. He can't touch raptors first. So he has to do red or gromp or blue. Or etc. These are the sort of things like, these are how you truly push. Your knowledge is understanding all of the other champions, at least at the very baseline level. You don't have to have intricate knowledge of them. But, like, you need to know what their first clear should look like. Baseline. [00:57:34] Speaker B: Yep. All right, we got one more quick one from toast to wrap up this week. How can you tell when you need to help Elener push or crash crash a wave without them pinging you? [00:57:44] Speaker A: This all right. [00:57:46] Speaker B: Is I want to start this off in low elo. Unfortunately, the answer is unless they ping you, you probably shouldn't because they will have a meltdown that you dared to touch their minions. Doesn't matter whether it was correct or not. They'll lose their minds. I hate that that's the first answer I have to give. So let's talk about the actual. Like, when should you. Assuming that they're not malding. [00:58:10] Speaker A: I always ping my. Like, I. Oh, it takes a second to ping. I will ping. Assist me like, hey, here you go. Help like. And that's it. Like. And typically in my mindset, you know, this is platinum, emerald. Ish. Elo. I don't know where I'm at right now, but in the past and I don't even don't. It don't matter if you take the cs. Just shove that wave. Like, just push it. Like, don't try to worry about the cs like, most the time, your jungle or your top lane, if you just had a successful gank is not going to lose your mind. Lose their mind. Like, they're not. [00:58:49] Speaker C: I really wish you took true if it don't know. Yeah. If you took the kill and then you take minions, they flip. [00:58:55] Speaker A: They will. They might lose their mind there if they died and you got the killer. You're. It's just. There's nothing you're gonna be able to do right there except hold the wave right there for them on the till they get back. [00:59:07] Speaker B: I have done that and the person absolutely lost their mind in a good way. Like, holy shit, dude, you're the goat. As I made the trade a one for one and then held the wave for him outside a turret without taking them so he could teleport back. Dude loved me for the rest of the game. That being said, the actual when should you interact with the wave without them prompting? Is the wave pushing towards your side or towards the enemy side? Because the one condition that you must assist with after a gank is if the wave is pushing towards the enemy and your laner is not full health. [00:59:42] Speaker C: There's a. There's an easy way to check on this. If your laner like this is early laning is one or two levels behind and it's on their half, they need your help because they're unable to do any. Anything. [00:59:55] Speaker B: Yes. [00:59:57] Speaker C: Now, sometimes the correct answer really is leave them because they trying to fix that might make everything worse. Suddenly. You've now given a Darius two kills, plus he's got a freeze going. [01:00:11] Speaker B: Yep. [01:00:12] Speaker A: Most laners are going to ping. You help me. Like, I mean, in my experience, I've always, like, seen the pings come in. You can even type like. You can even type like, hey, ping me if you want me to help push your lanes after ganks. Like, just type that out. [01:00:28] Speaker B: You got to remember, pillow, we're aiming this at a newer player audience, a lower experience audience in silver in bronze. Nah, they don't. They don't understand. [01:00:39] Speaker A: So, yeah, then it's very simple. If the waves pushing towards the enemy help it push. [01:00:44] Speaker B: If it's collapsing, literally just count the minions. If there's more of your minions than there are of the enemy minions, it's going to push at them. The reason you need to help is because after the gank, your laner is injured, they want to go back, they want to spend their gold they just got, and they don't want to get ganked themselves. If you leave them solo to push it, there's a high risk they get ganked or teleported on, and now their back timing is bad and the enemy gets to crash the wave into your turret. If the wave is pushing towards your lane, however, you want to leave it alone. Because then while the enemy is dead, their minions are killing all of your minions and they're not getting gold or experience for it at all. [01:01:23] Speaker C: You do need to remember one thing specifically. If you are trying to crash a wave, you need to actually crash that goddamn wave. [01:01:30] Speaker B: It needs to get all the way under turret. [01:01:32] Speaker C: It needs to be in the turret. [01:01:34] Speaker A: You can also take the clues from your. Your laner. If they start spending their resources on the wave to clear that wave, like real quick, you can probably throw in a spell and help them out. Just try not to take the CS if you can. [01:01:47] Speaker B: That's the key is if you can help them push without taking any of the CS from them, they're much less likely to maul. [01:01:54] Speaker C: This is almost entirely a top a day bot scenario. This doesn't happen in mid. Like, there's next to no chance that you have to help push or crash a wave in mid. It moves way too quickly there. [01:02:09] Speaker A: There is though one time where you never help the laner push a wave after a gank. And that is going to be when there's a Lucian top. Because Lucian does not need any help pushing a wave because he's already solo killed his laner before he even gets up there. Before you get up there. [01:02:26] Speaker B: So yeah. What are you doing ganking for your Lucian top? He's already won the game for you. [01:02:32] Speaker C: Then he's gonna be even higher because you've just drawn up the enemy jungler there as well. [01:02:37] Speaker B: True. Turn it into a 2v2 so he can get double the kills. Alright guys, this has been episode 520 of the Four Wards podcast. I've been Jack Soman from Mike and many names for Pillow Pet. Have a great night. [01:02:51] Speaker A: Good night. [01:02:52] Speaker C: Good night everybody. [01:02:54] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards podcast. 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