The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 528: An Off-Meta Episode

[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 528 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Sohlman and I've got with me both of my regular co hosts. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:47] Speaker C: There you go. That sounded weird after I said it. [00:00:50] Speaker B: That's okay, it fit you perfectly. We've also got Pillow Pat. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Hi. Hope you're driving safe if you're driving. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Please make sure you're paying attention to the road over us if you are listening to us while you drive. Guys, we are the Forwards podcast. We have a discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. Playing a whole bunch of mayhem and norms and whatever we feel like doing and it's a fun time. Link is in the episode description. We also stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch tv Jackselman, Mike can be found at Twitch TV micahmanynames and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch tv Pillowpet and I want to give a shout out to our patrons supporting us at the shout out tier. Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Skippius, Esquire, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Yeet the Dab. Thank you so much for your support guys. You pay for our hosting so that we can keep this show on the Internet. If you want to support the podcast, head over to patreon.com the Four Words 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. Sometimes it's literally us just figuring out what to talk about and sometimes it's just us telling stories from our lives. It varies. Sometimes it's long, sometimes it's short. We've literally had a half hour pre shows before. [00:02:11] Speaker C: Sometimes they're five minutes pre baggers. [00:02:14] Speaker B: It varies. And then if you pay $10 you do get that same exclusive feed and we will shout you out during the intro to every episode. And and all of those perks do also apply to our general gaming podcast. Check out from 8bit to 4k bi weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Last but not least listeners, we are low on questions. We are probably running out tonight so write in to the 4wardspodcastmail.com with questions you want answered so we can answer them on the show again. That is the four wards podcastmail.com so we've got a pair of shorter topics tonight for our main show. Our first one is Mike and I have both been running into a lot of people trying to make off meta champions work. Either a champion just in a role they're not supposed to be or with a build that is unusual. And we want to talk about the idea of how to succeed with off meta because it's not bad because it's off meta. It's bad because often it is played wrong. [00:03:22] Speaker C: But there are occasions, there are a few instances where you just can't do it. It does not function the same way. It can't go there. [00:03:32] Speaker B: That is a Please stop trying to play Yuumi in solo lanes. [00:03:35] Speaker C: That is a thing that is hard coded into some champions. They cannot do something. Yumi is not meant to be a solo laner. People who lose to Yuumi solo lane are bad. [00:03:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So Mike, do you want to give the example of what prompted us coming up with this topic? And we'll expand from there. [00:03:52] Speaker C: So we had two games in a row with these off meta support. Specifically there's one that it that has been a support before but has never been a common support and depending on how it's played is just not a good support. Started with fiddlesticks, which I've seen it before. It's okay. It's not a generally speaking good support in comparison, but like it has known to happen in the past in the same way that Heimerdinger has been known to happen in the past. And then came the one that really threw us because it was aatrox support and that that just fundamentally doesn't work. [00:04:33] Speaker B: All right, this is where you and I disagree. So what prompted us making this an actual topic is this Aatrox fed his ass off really bad. [00:04:42] Speaker C: Yeah, he had a death every two minutes. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah, quite literally. So we want to use him as an example of not like oh, this champion doesn't work as an off meta support. Even though I absolutely am not advocating for anyone to go out there and play Aatrox support. Please for the love of God don't inflict that on yourself or your team. But more of a let's analyze like what could make it work so that you can then apply it to whatever champion you are wanting to play off meta so you can understand why this one didn't. So Aatrox's normal role is top lane and he is now off role as jungle like Riot is trying to support him being a functional jungler. Those are intended to be his only viable roles. He's always seen niche counterpick existence in mid lane against very specific matchups only. That's always been true. Aatrox has never been any kind of bot lane farming or support. So I want to analyze why in his primary roles as a top laner, specifically, what does Aatrox succeed at? Where does he excel? What is his purpose? [00:05:53] Speaker C: So pillow, unless you're going to take this one, I can grab it. All right. Aatrox is kind of a dualist, but he's very good at like drain tanking you. He goes in for fights, he beats you and if you're going for an even trade, he will end out ahead because his healing is that high. So he likes medium length fights, usually five to ten seconds or so. He's not a burst character unless you build him very specifically. And he's not a like long super fight character unless his alt is going. But Aatrox excels in that like 5 to 10 second trade period where he can pop his abilities do a burst of damage. And if you're trading with him, he's usually trading up because even if you're damaging him, he is healing. [00:06:44] Speaker B: Yep. The reason the point I wanted to go is Aatrox is an attrition champion. He is going to wear down your resources, he's going to burn your health bar, he's going to make you spend mana because he doesn't have to and because he has so much sustain in his kit, he's going to come out better from all of those short trades until he finds a window where he can all in you. And because he's got the health advantage from the previous trades, you can't beat him. [00:07:12] Speaker C: And you know what? Really, really heavily counters Aatrox specifically as an attrition ranged poke. [00:07:19] Speaker B: Yep. [00:07:19] Speaker C: The thing that exists in mass in bot lane like this, this wasn't picked as a counter to some weird melee matchup. There was a thrash gin. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and that's. I think the key here is if this guy had a known how to play Aatrox because our specific example was just genuinely bad at the champion. But, but if Aatrox support was picked into like a Nila Leona Lane, I'd be like, yeah, I can see that kind of working. Maybe. [00:07:51] Speaker C: So here's, here's my thing. [00:07:53] Speaker B: It's off meta, but I wouldn't call it trolling the way that I would call what Mike and I encountered trolling. [00:07:59] Speaker C: The reason that he and I have a slight disagreement on this is because I am a firm believer that unless you are playing to be like I am expecting to be the carry of the bot Lane, you don't have the gold economy as a. As a support Aatrox to function as Aatrox. You're too squishy, you don't heal enough, you don't provide enough reliable cc. [00:08:23] Speaker B: But you get a really potent free spellblade effect and most of the types of champions that you should be maybe considering this off meta pick into Aatrox can actually win the war of attrition, especially post six. [00:08:40] Speaker C: Yeah. So like there's. There is a. I'm also. [00:08:44] Speaker B: I'm also operating on the assumption that you are pairing with an ad carry such as a Draven who is strong [00:08:50] Speaker C: early at bullying people which I mean I need to make sure that was the right one. Yeah, Ash is a good bully. Ash is a great bully. So he had a good ad carry to go with. But the lane and this is. This is where really the thing is unless you are one a one trick who intimately knows your champion inside and out or are you are explicitly taking this off meta pick to be a counter to something that is meta or to something that you like. I know this is a weird pick, but I've seen where this can work. Right. I've done this Rell such as I'm going to go way back into worlds before in 2016 suddenly seeing MF support. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Yep. [00:09:35] Speaker C: This is where that started with Rox Tigers and that. That kind of thing showing up. That is where a weird niche counter really shines. They did it explicitly into specific champions [00:09:51] Speaker B: Zyra and they did it with an Ash. [00:09:54] Speaker C: So. So it was explicitly thought out. We have someone in the Discord who is basically a Lux Main who has played Lux in Top and Jungle and kicked ass because this person is a Lux Main who has significant experience on it. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Yes. [00:10:12] Speaker C: I don't recommend doing that for anyone else. This is why like Aatrox is. Is something that I think is a bad choice unless you're doing a specific niche counter. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Yes. So that's. That's where we agree is I still don't think Aatrox is the optimal choice even into the situations where it does make sense. Like I said, an example would be against like a Nila Leona or something in that vein where the enemy does not have the range to poke out Aatrox in the first place. So you could actually do the Aatrox thing to begin with. But the key that we agree on is you need to know your champion inside and out if you're going to play something weird. [00:10:52] Speaker C: And the second half of this point that we were talking about this this off but a niche pick is when things don't go your way, you can't just decide fuck it because if you do that, you've guaranteed the loss now which was the problem with the game before that. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Yes. So you want to tell them what the game before that was. [00:11:13] Speaker C: The game before that was the fiddlesticks support which we were talking about where they had two early deaths and then the fiddlesticks said it and he sort of roamed around and it didn't really accomplish anything. He because he's fiddlesticks, he decided to grab not the enemy jungle camps randomly when he could see the enemy jungler ganking. No, no, no. He would grab our junglers camps and Yep, he would. I don't. I don't know if I ever actually saw him alt. I know we had to have at [00:11:45] Speaker B: some point he definitely used it but [00:11:47] Speaker C: like there were very clear potential ganks that he could have tried to do that he never did with an ultimate as far as I could tell. [00:11:57] Speaker B: So the key here is if you're playing something off meta, you're looking to get an element of surprise because the enemy probably doesn't know how your champion works as well as you do. And you need to have a fallback plan for when that surprise fails for whatever reason. Maybe the enemy expects your behavior. Maybe your teammate just absolutely flubs something and puts you behind. It doesn't matter. You need to have a fallback pattern using the example of a fiddlestick support. Your fallback pattern is go control vision on the map and look for opportunities to gank with your ults. This guy didn't do that. But that would be the fallback pattern that a fiddlestick support could do. Where even after you screwed up your lane and fed, you could then turn things around and get back into the game and contribute to a team win [00:12:46] Speaker C: another great opportunity for something specifically like fiddlesticks is a champion meant to jungle used in an off meta role. You are brilliant at proper counter jungling and jungle jungle tracking. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Yes. [00:13:00] Speaker C: So Shaco is another one who does this very very well. Let me put things around constant top [00:13:05] Speaker B: lane yi that I keep seeing show up in like one out of every ten of my games. God, I don't know why. [00:13:12] Speaker C: Yeah, for. For Shaco and E you can pop your box or your I guess word free thing into the enemy's jungle to get clear Vision on them. When you see the enemy ganking, go, go, take their shit. On the other side you have some [00:13:28] Speaker B: of the Elaine Master Ye still gets the bonus damage on Monsters on his Q. He's still going to shred camps. [00:13:34] Speaker C: If you're a level three fiddlesticks or Shaco because it's six minutes in the game and you're still level three, you'll clear a camp really fucking easily. [00:13:46] Speaker B: Yep. That one is one thing for other champions. Just because most other champions don't jungle as safely as those two. [00:13:51] Speaker C: No, but those. These guys. [00:13:55] Speaker A: One thing I wanted to jump in and say is like you. What you kind of touched on, it is like know your strength of your off meta pick and why that one is being picked. So for an example, I'm going to throw an ADC into the top lane. The strength of an ADC in the top lane. They're not meta by any means. They're always going to be off meta. And like I think Vayne is still an off meta pick in the top lane. You go up there because you can pro play. Yes, you can. See you could. You can harass your laner, you make them weak and you get strong off of Cheese Kills. So you. If you're sitting back and just farming as an ADC in the top lane, you're losing that lane. Like there is going to be a point and it's going to be very quickly that that top laner just runs you down just where the power gap is. However, there are ADCs that are scaling ADCs or scaling champs that want to go into these top lanes because it is called the island for a reason. Most likely you're going to be left alone. Smolder still off meta but can very easily scale without harassment in the top lane. Can throw a Q on the champion, can get the cues on the minions very easily, get stacks without having to worry about jungle pressure. So it's knowing the strength and why that is the off meta pick in that that specific role. [00:15:16] Speaker B: This is the same thing like Mike playing Smolder into Malzahar specifically because he knows that that is a good counter pick. The matchup is great individually. So he can play smolder mid that game because of the circumstances and because he understands that matchup and how to play around the weaknesses of playing Smolder mid. [00:15:36] Speaker C: Yep. The last time I did it, which was what, four days ago or something, we thought they were going to be a Malzahar mid because they had a weird, weird team comp. Yeah, they did Lux Brand, Malzahar and then no Jungler and a Tom Kench like who do you think is going to be supporting that scenario? You have two people who are actively played as supports and Amazahar. You'd assume that Malzahar would be the mid laner out of those three. Nope, that was the support. Malzahar. [00:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah. You had to lane against a Lux [00:16:08] Speaker C: and that game turned out 15 5. So that was a brutal game for them. [00:16:14] Speaker B: But the key there is Mike saw what the fallback pattern was. Oh, I'm not against Malzahar. Mike played safe. And I want to emphasize this because he often doesn't. Mike played safe. He didn't step up and take unnecessary trades. He didn't take unnecessary risks. He actually paid attention when pings went out on the jungler that was approaching him. And despite going against a assassin, Kane Jungle and a Lux where if he got hit by a bind it was guaranteed death. He only died five times in a 25 minute game while getting 15 kills with insane Farm. That's the key is he picked it for a specific situation. That situation didn't materialize so Mike played to the situation he was in now. [00:17:01] Speaker C: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna make up a scenario in which Aatrox as a support might actually be worthwhile. So I think you're absolutely right. It has to be something like Nylah or back like when Mordekaiser was a multi person on the bot lane. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Someone doing Garen Yumi maybe or one [00:17:20] Speaker C: of the very, very short range AD carries. And it needs to be. [00:17:23] Speaker B: I think even the short range AD carries have enough range to beat the shit out of Aatrox. Pretty much out of his own range [00:17:29] Speaker C: but he has a chance of actually hitting them with a W dash as opposed to Caitlyn Jin. And here's the other thing that support needs to be an assassin support. It can't be a tank CC support because he loses the CC game and then he just dies because it doesn't matter how much healing he has in his kit versus his cc if he's not allowed to cast spells, he doesn't have the economy at that stage to survive. The one CC you can get from like a Pantheon support. Yeah, that's actually probably something that he can face. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Yep, I could see that. That's why I said I would pair it with something like a Draven where Draven can self peel or can peel the AD carry while Leona is sitting on Aatrox's head. And then the two of Them can just beat the shit out of the ad carry once Leona's CC is done. That would be the example of where I think it does work is the ad carry supports exactly what Aatrox wants of okay, they're blowing their cooldowns. They've blown them and now we run them down and murder them. But yeah, so these are examples of off meta, but the goal is for you guys to be thinking about, oh, I got auto filled. I'm in this role. I don't play champions in this role. What do I play? Usually the answer is going to be, well, play a meta champion in that role to the best of your ability. But sometimes a champion you do play will function because of what you see has already been picked or whatever the circumstance is. And we want you to be doing these these steps through in your brain to figure out, can I get away with doing this? Should I do this? Am I going to be better playing my main in a weird role, or am I going to be better just playing something meta to the best of my ability? Which you're not as good on as your main, but it fits better. [00:19:15] Speaker C: Enchanters are some of the easiest champions to play in the game. The, the, the only issue with them is that you don't feel like you're contributing to a win unless you're playing very specific enchanters. [00:19:28] Speaker B: If you find a pocket friend to carry you, enchanters feel amazing. [00:19:33] Speaker C: That's true. [00:19:34] Speaker B: If you're just trying to shield and heal whoever on your team is fighting, they often feel really underwhelming. Even if you are actually massively contributing to a victory. Oh yeah, it's when you get to just be the pocket healer for the fat guy is when you feel like you're a God. Okay, so that was our first topic, talking about off meta for a bit. We have one other topic for tonight, and this stems from an experience I had yesterday of one of my friends does not play League of Legends at all really. But me and some other friends got her to join us for some Aram Mayhem because Mayhem is really fun. It's low stakes. So it was a fun way to play. And we played for several hours. And the thing I noticed is the way that she approaches fighting in League is the same way that one would approach fighting in Overwatch or Paladins or Valorant or any other objective team PvP shooter of oh, time to fight. We brawl. Oh, someone died. Okay, well, I respawn and let's go fight again. And to a degree that is kind of How RAM is. But I pose to you two, how do I teach my friend that it is okay to let the enemy live if it means you also live and walk away from a fight before the game gets out of control in the first place? Because obviously, especially like this is exaggerated in mayhem, once a game has gotten out of hand, they just kill you instantly. [00:21:03] Speaker A: So I think it's hard to specifically teach that in an Aram game itself because that's just what Arams are. Everybody just pushed into one lane and you're fighting the whole time. I don't have an answer for Aram other than you've already said you tried to teach. Hey, just poke, just sit back, throw your abilities, maybe be like, hey, this game, just try to hit people with your ranged abilities and like, don't step up and try, like play a game of dodgeball. I don't know. Try, try, try playing a game of dodgeball. You hit them, don't get hit. So like, I don't. [00:21:43] Speaker B: As an example, a couple of those games she was playing smolder and she thought, okay, I'm just going to hit my abilities at max range. But frequently the issue was she would hit the abilities at max range and then walk forward to try to hit the next set of abilities, not recognizing that the enemy will also walk forward and just murder you. [00:22:05] Speaker A: So that's why I think it's really tough, especially in Aram, to teach a new player to like, hey, you don't have to fight all the time if they already have the red is dead mentality going into it and just want a PvP, which is fine, but you are just going to grief yourself in an Aram if you just go in and fight. I think more specifically if I'm going into like a Summoner's Rift game where you could fight, focus on more tiny objectives like, hey, this game, try not fighting, just get your farm, play farming simulator. Or hey, try to push the lane and hit the tower. But don't ever try to do damage to the enemy. Go at a damageless game or something, Work on your fundamentals. It's kind of hard to really think about once someone's set in the mindset that this is how they have to play to try to thinking of ways to change that without constant drilling over and over and over. Like maybe in a 1v1 situation, like go in them with a custom and just like show them. Like, don't interact with them and be like, show them. Like, hey, you can't kill me because I'm just hitting you. With abilities and you can't get me. So this is worth the benefit of not fighting. [00:23:20] Speaker C: Don't benefit Aram specifically, as we were saying, the absolute like best way I think to teach the fighting, honestly, your first couple games you're learning, is she still learning champions learning the basics of the game? [00:23:36] Speaker B: Yeah, like absolute beginner called first AI. [00:23:40] Speaker C: It teaches you the ability to fight, it teaches you the ability to learn in objectives, it teaches you laning surprisingly well, at least the basics of it. And the co opus AI are kind of cowards. They will fight. They will fight and they will flee for their fucking lives and. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Or they will chase you down relentlessly if they have a health advantage. [00:24:04] Speaker C: Yeah. So once you can like learn how to duel the. The AI partner, then you start moving into like, okay, we can start working on to the maybe Aram Mayhem, maybe Brawl. Those are, these are good places to learn the team fighting portions. Which is the hardest thing to learn in league, I think, is team fighting. Because it's an ever evolving, never static thing where one small misstep can cost you everything. And that's true across every stage of play, from the most basic to the most skilled. Team fighting is by far the hardest. Everything else you can pretty much practice on your own if you want to. Going into a co op game is a thing you can easily do. You can go into practice tool and do reps, learning how to do farm drills, you can do that for jungle clears, etc. Team fighting is the thing that needs to be taught and learned. And I think between Brawl and Aram, Mayhem is the worst place to learn. [00:25:07] Speaker B: Okay. [00:25:08] Speaker C: Because Mayhem teaches you very incorrect things about champions, what they're capable of. No, it really, it is one of the most fun things in the game while you've played a lot. But also you need to have like kind of an understanding of what you should be picking because if you have no idea what the bonuses that you're grabbing even are, you have no great concept to fix things up, to make yourself a build to. To even become that stupid overpowered thing that makes Mayhem feel so good. [00:25:42] Speaker B: That is a good point because something I didn't think about until right now is that she was frequently picking augments like Brutalizer, that just kind of suck. And I didn't realize why, because in my experienced player brain, sometimes you just have to pick that augment because you got offered some shit and that was the least shit of the offerings. It didn't occur to me. You're probably right. She probably was picking that. She was like, oh, that gives me damage and armor pen. That sounds great. Not realizing how good something that's more esoteric stats are. [00:26:18] Speaker C: Yeah. So like I, I think Mayhem is the evolution to the game where if you've got a lot of reps in the game, you understand the fundamentals of the game. Mayhem is now your for fun, let's it go game. If you're not at that stage. I, I think Mayhem is a trap because it teaches you really bad things. [00:26:38] Speaker B: Fair enough. Like she thought Karthus was overpowered until we went up against a bad one. [00:26:43] Speaker C: Yeah. A Karthus that doesn't have two Ults is much better. [00:26:46] Speaker A: I am still firm believer in Brawl being a great teaching tool. [00:26:51] Speaker C: Brawl is, I think the best teaching tool for specifically team fights. It has. [00:26:57] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:26:57] Speaker C: Not the same kind of shenanigan read here M has. You're allowed to go back and heal and pop out and then go back in. It does have that. That problem where you can get one person that has the super buff because they haven't been killed. So like that's the one thing about Brawl that is not equivalent. But if you get a good fight [00:27:19] Speaker B: also has more than just one lane of non stop fighting. [00:27:22] Speaker C: Yep. It has jungle monitors. It can give you creeps that give you blue buff, red buff. [00:27:27] Speaker B: I think that's a good call. [00:27:29] Speaker C: Yeah. The, the big thing is just going to be teaching in other game modes and then graduate to Mayhem later. [00:27:34] Speaker B: Then I think next time I will try to promote Brawl as an alternative because that crew is very like, they're in the Aram. They're probably not interested in Summoner's Rift, so they'll probably enjoy Brawl and Brawl would be a better place for her to learn. [00:27:48] Speaker C: They may like Arena. [00:27:50] Speaker B: I suggested Arena. It was turned down. [00:27:52] Speaker C: Okay. [00:27:53] Speaker B: That, that was something that I brought up and we, we discussed if they're Brawl. Didn't occur to me. [00:27:59] Speaker C: If you're a competitive person, arena is where you could get your competition kicks. Unlike the other. [00:28:05] Speaker B: She is, but she doesn't like the smaller scale. [00:28:08] Speaker C: I guess that's fair. [00:28:09] Speaker B: Which is fine. Okay, thanks. I wanted to just talk that through with you guys because it was a weird experience where I was like, usually I'm good at teaching new players, but I feel lost here. Okay, that's our topics for tonight. So let's answer some questions. And our only question writer we've got questions in the docket for this week is Toast. Thank you, Toast, for writing in all these questions. The rest of you. TheForwards PodcastMail.com we're gonna run out, so please write in. I don't want to have no questions next week. You've seen what happens when we have to make things up ourselves. So Toast writes, I've been playing mid in Norms to have a change from jungle and I feel like I'm just getting gapped every lane. So I have a few mid related questions. If I'm playing melee into a ranged champion, how do I live through their poke while still being able to farm? [00:29:00] Speaker C: That is one of the hardest things to do with melee. It is the core problem with the frankly really powerful melee champions that are played in middle is surviving that poke gap that that exists really early in the game. [00:29:16] Speaker B: Yep. They can just auto attack you and you can't auto attack them. [00:29:21] Speaker C: So this heavily depends on the champion you're playing. Heavily depends. [00:29:25] Speaker A: My suggestion would be you have the shortest run late run back to lane. If you're able to survive your farm, that's okay. Shovel A or shove away burst it, Take A, take some hits, press B, get back. There's also if it's available in your. I would say in your. Your runes if you're able to take Second Wind and get a Doran shield. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Yes. Second Wind Door and Shield is basically essential for I want to say 80% of these matchups explicitly. [00:29:55] Speaker C: The Doran Shield more than anything else is like almost required for all of these champions to function. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Yep. [00:30:02] Speaker C: Unless it's a melee versus. [00:30:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Melee versus Melee is a different dynamic. The other variable here is which melee champion because there's different degrees of melee. Someone like Yone has much more effective threat range than someone like let's say early game Zed where you don't really want to blow your your W Early game because then you have no escape Jungler shows up. So all you just have is just the maximum range of Shuriken Toss or Talon. Same idea. You just have the range of your W and if you commit with Q you are now in melee range of them and have no way out. So in addition to Doran's shield Second Wind, another thing you want to consider is looking for windows of opportunity. When do they step up too much so you can take a trade because you do need to do that versus when are you allowed to touch the farm and when when do you just need to wait? A lot of times those melee champions are really good at last hitting under turret most is Talon. Irelia all extremely good under turret Yasuo and Yone extremely good under turret. [00:31:12] Speaker C: Irelia might be the outlier there she is one of the best melee champions into ranged in the game. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Yes, but not at level one, two, three, typically. So even in the early game, you get poked out. So let them shove the wave. Get. Get the wave pushing towards you. Oh, no, it's under your turret. Well, you get every farm because melee champions have tools to do that. And then you get through the early game when you get to the point where you have your ultimate. Most melee champions with their ultimate, have the tools to kill a ranged champion in mid lane. [00:31:44] Speaker C: There's a second point here that most melee champions, and in fact, I'm gonna say pretty much every melee champion that plays mid lane, has a way of wiping a wave quickly. [00:31:54] Speaker B: Yes. [00:31:55] Speaker C: The wave, almost by design in mid lane, cannot be frozen for more than two waves. [00:32:01] Speaker B: Yep. [00:32:01] Speaker C: It will force itself to either go into tower or just clear itself out and then be back to static in the mid lane. Which means, unlike in top and bot, you don't really have the fear of being frozen on. And it's such a short lane, usually, even if you overextend a tiny bit to wipe a wave, because most people have ranged clear in some manner of speaking, when they're in the melee range. You can just run back and then back under tower if you're. If you're going. If you're after this has. This comes to the second portion of this, which is your health is a resource you need to be using, which means you need to be learning. When I'm explicitly trading my health for more farm. If you can trade your health with an advantageous back, even if they freeze on you, okay. But I was able to get back in the lane before the minions respawned. Now I'm back at full health, and they're still stuck, baby, in a third or two thirds health now. So now you have a health lead and usually by that time, the tools to fight them, Even if they've frozen it close to their tower, you now have the tools to fight back. [00:33:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. Health as a resource is a big part of that. So toast continues later in the game. How do I play side lanes? I push up to the tower and the enemies come to defend, But I can't just dive them, and there's nothing for me to roam, so I just feel homeless. Do I need to just wait for something to happen, or should I move down to the pushed lane? [00:33:28] Speaker C: Depending on the champion, you can just dive them. Some of some champions, like, depending on who you're playing. Zed's a great person to do this. Colley's a great person to do this, you, you can just dive a champion and if they don't kill you or you don't kill them within that three seconds, you walk away. [00:33:44] Speaker B: So most melee champs are good divers, but let's assume for the purpose of the question that he is not in a situation where he can successfully dive the enemy that is matching him. Yeah, they put the two tanky, whatever. Doesn't matter what the criteria is. If you can't dive them, you've got the wave pushed all the way to tower. What do you do? How do you play side lanes later in the game when you've made it to tower but can't keep doing anything in that lane? [00:34:08] Speaker A: So one thing I like to say is you never want to just sit still and do nothing because idle time is not ever. You got to do something. [00:34:19] Speaker B: To be fair, that something can sometimes be sit in a bush that you know is not warded because you've swept it or put a control ward in it and wait for someone to face check you. But that is doing something, not doing nothing. [00:34:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you're trying to set up like, okay, hopefully they think I backed or something and they're trying to shove one more wave and leave, that's always great. Specifically in side lanes because they have those bushes. Other than that, like, you can roam. [00:34:48] Speaker B: I have had where two seconds left on my recall. I see a ward die. Don't cancel your recall instantly. Wait till the last possible second and cancel your recall at like a quarter second left. They will have lost the vision by then. They won't know that you're not. That you're still there. It's so. [00:35:07] Speaker A: It's like the old back out, right outside of the bush trick and move right inside at the end. Other than that, like you could do productive. You can move towards objectives, neutral objectives, where something might be getting contested and you're going to have the. You're going to be at the upper hand. If they're answering you, that means they're collecting a wave and you're already on your way. Specifically talking like bare or dragon. Even scuttles, people fight over scuttles. Red buffs, blue buffs, all of those objectives. And also just go and get vision and wards and information. [00:35:43] Speaker C: That was going to be my point. There is the thing. If you are pushed up that far, you need to have some kind of defensive vision for you, which is offensive vision for your team as a whole. You're putting it near that point. If you're on bot side, you're putting it near that point either at blue buffer, red buff in that little alcove there so you can see people moving around the area there. You're maybe taking that jungle farm because it's just sitting there. Hey, it's free farm for you. You're strong enough to obliterate a camp or two or three. But like you, you need to have a minor amount of defensive vision. Unless you know for a fact you are the bait and even then you want some. [00:36:26] Speaker B: So when you're split pushing as a mid laner, you generally should have sweeper in the late game as a mid laner, just period. There are very few exceptions. [00:36:35] Speaker C: Blue trinket. [00:36:36] Speaker B: Sometimes those are the exceptions. There are some champions where you just need to go blue trinket instead. But they're also the ones that usually shouldn't be side laning and then buy control wards. Oh, you've crashed the wave in the turret, but you can't dive them. Cool. You're gonna now go deny their vision and set up your vision so they can't even enter this place because maybe you can't turret dive them, but you're playing a melee mid. They probably can't face check into you. So make sure that they would have to if they go into an area because they don't know where you are. [00:37:07] Speaker C: And unless you are one of very specific champions. If you in your vision see two people coming at you, now is the time to run. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:18] Speaker C: Send them on a merry chase following you if you can. Because if you've got two or three people following you, you're one v, two or three, your team should hopefully be able to do something on the other side. Certain champions are so good at this. Kassadin is one of the absolute best to make people run on a merry chase with you. [00:37:38] Speaker B: LeBlanc is amazing at it. [00:37:40] Speaker C: What was. It was two weeks ago where we had the game where I was the cast on, where I had literally the entire team try and chase me down. [00:37:49] Speaker B: That sounds familiar. [00:37:50] Speaker C: Yeah, I got mordekaiser ulted under tower and then everyone else tried to gank me and I just kept jumping because that's what Kassadin does. [00:37:59] Speaker B: I literally have a clip on my Twitch channel of me playing LeBlanc and literally dodging a Ramus for about 15 or 20 seconds straight as he blew his ult and his flash and his Q trying to catch me. And I just kept jumping walls, snapping back or not snapping back so that he was constantly having to play a guessing game of where I was gonna be until I Finally found an opening with him and his team where I could actually get out of the situation. Some champions are just really good at that. [00:38:28] Speaker C: Fizz Talon, etc. Yeah. [00:38:30] Speaker B: And they happen to be some of the best mid laners to play for side lanes. Some other champions that get played in mid lane a lot, examples would be like Syndra, Orianna, they can side lane. They're much better off just kind of being with the team in the late game and going for picks and catching people out. [00:38:49] Speaker C: It's mostly the melee mid laners that are great at side laning the melees [00:38:54] Speaker B: and then champions like LeBlanc. [00:38:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Where they have escape tools and assassination tools to catch people out. Okay, so let's. Let's get to Toast's other question. He's got two more. He writes, when my team is taking bad fights, at what point do I just let them die? If I know the fight is bad and I know I can't make a difference for one reason or another and I know I can get something else out of it elsewhere on the map. I feel like that would be better. Right. [00:39:22] Speaker C: If you can actually accomplish something on the other side of the map. Yes. If that fight will lose you the game. No, I did this last week. I caused it. Oh, yes. [00:39:35] Speaker B: It was a couple days ago. [00:39:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Technically last week. [00:39:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I caused a game because I teleport to a fight. [00:39:42] Speaker C: Yeah. And that. [00:39:43] Speaker B: And that turned out to be a game deciding fight. [00:39:46] Speaker C: And I could have definitely changed that. I was the strongest person on the map. [00:39:51] Speaker B: Yep. It was, it was. It was definitely a bummer because we absolutely would have won that fight if he had teleported and there was no circumstance where our randoms were going to walk away from the fight. Unfortunately, even though they should have, they really, really. [00:40:09] Speaker C: Yeah. This was me, not the. The problem was our randoms were very inconsistent in what they would do. They would hard commit. No. Commit randomly. Not decide to do any fights where they're right next to you. So it made decision making absolutely confusing. Most of the game I had spent going, well, they're not helping in anything. Why would I go do that when I could be pushing the sideline? Turns out that game I needed to be there. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. So that's the first part is make sure you show up to the fights that are going to be game deciding. Even if you think there's no chance you can contribute to it, you are better off trying and failing most of the time than not trying. Because not showing up is 100% chance of loss and showing up might be a 98% chance of a loss. That's 2% better. Take it. [00:40:58] Speaker C: We've seen the. [00:41:00] Speaker B: I. I've seen them happen too. Sometimes you just get the miracle. Someone misjudges something and the miracle happens. Is it likely? No. Is it a better chance than the alternative? Yes. So you take the best option you have available. The other part of it and this one is more situation specific. Kind of want to get a feel for your teammates. Sometimes it's the right choice to join a bad fight because you know if you don't then your teammates are gonna throw a tantrum. Not because it's actually a smart choice to join the fight. Or even sometimes like I've had games where it was the right choice to join a doomed Baron fight over taking a dragon as the jungler. Not because I thought we could actually win the Baron fight, not because I thought I could even make it into the pit to steal the dragon or the Baron, but because if I take the dragon instead and my team dies at Baron, A, they're gonna walk down mid with Baron and end the game and we're gonna lose anyway. But B, my team is going to throw a tantrum that I didn't show up to the epic monster fight. And why was the jungler not even there? What are you doing? Doesn't matter if I got the dragon. And the same thing is true in reverse. It doesn't matter that I got grubs or got Rift Herald. The enemy got a dragon. One dragon does not matter in the grand scheme of things, but the team mental sometimes does. So if you've got a feel already that your teammates are going to be tiltlords. As much as it sucks, as much as I hate it, sometimes the correct play is just go along with what the tiltlords want. Because if you don't, they're going to guarantee that you lose regardless of whether or not the play is good. [00:42:45] Speaker C: You will find this out probably before 10 minutes. They will either have. [00:42:48] Speaker B: They'll be the ones typing. [00:42:50] Speaker C: Yeah. And there are. There are some people who type for good. It happens occasionally. [00:42:54] Speaker B: Yes. [00:42:55] Speaker C: Read if you, if you have chat off. This is the disadvantage of having chat off. You don't know until it is too late. [00:43:04] Speaker B: Yep, this is a reason I leave chat on. Even though I'm well documented as being cursed as fuck. Getting really troll really angry teammates really often. [00:43:14] Speaker C: If you let that chat get to your head, it's still better off to have the chat off. But then you need to be able to read people's movements and if you can't read their movements and you can't have chat on, you're making it very, very hard for yourself. And the jungle is probably the incorrect answer because as much as I am loathe to say this, the jungler is the single most common person to cause your team to tilt without having done anything wrong. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Yep, Jungler is the scapegoat. And also, everyone thinks they know what the jungler should be doing and gets mad if you don't do what they think you should be doing, regardless of any actual facts. So sometimes it's just best to just play around to the idiots. Yeah. Is your likelihood of winning because you got the idiot fed good? No. But it's higher than the 0% that it'll be when that idiot throws a tantrum and starts just running under turret over and over to die repeatedly in every lane or stealing every one of your camps that you're not immediately on top of. Oh my God, I've had so many of those. I literally had a dude the other day throw a tantrum because he died in lane. And then I finished the camp I was on and walked over to his turret and took the minions that were under turret. They were actively being killed by the turret, but the fact that I dared touch them as the jungler, he immediately decided the game was over and started fighting me for camps. [00:44:48] Speaker C: Well, the fiddlestick support that we had before started just, oh no, my lane is going. I'm better take our jungle. [00:44:55] Speaker B: Yep. Some people can't be reasoned with. Some people are just ridiculous. It is what it is. You're going to lose those games no matter what you do. But some people, even though they can't be reasoned with, haven't yet decided to guarantee the loss. So just cater to their dumb fucking egos. It's better than letting them choose to make you miserable. So we have one more question from Toast, and it's completely unrelated. He writes, unrelated to my previous question. How does Kha' zix decide which spells to evolve? And I'm going to expand this slightly. Viktor is also in the same kind of boat. [00:45:31] Speaker C: Yes. [00:45:32] Speaker B: And Kai' Sa is also in the same kind of boat. These champions all have the ability to get augments for abilities at a different order than their norm. And there are situations where it is appropriate to do so. [00:45:45] Speaker C: Key point we're going to talk about specifically Summoner's Rift, because Aram has different orders for all of these champions. [00:45:55] Speaker B: I think Victor's the only one that it's usually consistent. [00:45:59] Speaker C: I see enough q Upgrades. [00:46:01] Speaker B: That Q upgrade second is the norm. [00:46:03] Speaker C: No Q upgrade first, not in a ram. [00:46:05] Speaker B: Okay, Q upgrade first is wild. [00:46:08] Speaker C: Yeah, in norms. Q upgrade is the one that's just like I've seen it done enough, so [00:46:12] Speaker B: let's talk about it. So how do you decide when to deviate from your defaults? I guess is the way I want to phrase this as a real question, because you should have a default. Every one of these champions has a default order. You should be going to in most circumstances. I think Kha' zix is a little weird in that R are interchangeable on 11 and 16 and Q is your default first and unless you're in a specific circumstance to do so, you don't evolve W as Kha'. Zix. [00:46:42] Speaker C: He is the most flexible of them in that you are frequently switching between E and R, not knowing which one's going to be which. And almost always your W isn't evolved. There are situations to evolve the W though, and they aren't minimal. [00:47:00] Speaker B: So let's start with that then. When are the situations to evolve W On Kha', Zix? The big one is the enemy has champions that have no dashes or gap close but need to be in melee range to kill your carries. So this would be for example if they have Mordekaiser or Garen or Darius. That can increase the value of W a lot because the evolved W in addition to shooting three spikes instead of one, applies a slow and it's a slow that's more potent if the enemy is isolated. Kha' zix with W evolve suddenly can actually peel those specific champions off of an ad carry. You now have a fallback pattern in the game, something that Khazq often struggles with in those specific environments it is [00:47:46] Speaker C: very rare to see, but it is possible to get multiple explosions to hit the same target. So it can be a damage increase. [00:47:55] Speaker B: It is very this requires people to be clumped up and you to be in melee range of the clumped up people. [00:48:01] Speaker C: But like the the W evolve on Kha' Zix is almost always a third or second evolve. [00:48:10] Speaker B: Yep. [00:48:10] Speaker C: It is never unless it's [00:48:15] Speaker B: yes. [00:48:16] Speaker C: Yeah. So the this is where Kha' zix is the most unique in that that W evolve is a situation and he is also the only one who in one matchup is allowed to get all four. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Yep. [00:48:29] Speaker C: If you face Orangar once you hit 16, I don't know if it's once you hit or once you both hit 16. There is a semi subtle quest that pops up that you may not even know exists anymore, which is kill each other. Whichever one of you kills the other one gets a buff. A permanent buff. Rengar has had what his buff is change multiple times over the course of his existence. Kha' zix has remained static. You get your fourth evolve. [00:48:57] Speaker B: Yep. It's. [00:48:58] Speaker A: Is this still true in ranked? Is this still true in ranked? Or they kind of take it. Did they take it out of ranked? Because I know most quests got disabled and ranked. [00:49:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So here's the conditions for the Hunt is on, which is the name of this quest. And you can look up all of these quests by looking up Nemesis quest on the wiki. By the way, Rengar must have all five bonetooth necklace trophies, meaning he needs to have killed or gotten an assistant on every champion on the enemy team. And Kha' Zix must have all three evolves. So Kha' Zix has to be level 16, but Rengar's level does not matter. And then both people have to be alive at the same time. The quest will then pop up. And yes, these. These do exist in ranked nowadays. They did not used to. And yeah, kha' zix also is literally like the biggest beneficiary of any of these nemesis quests. Most of them give very minor bonuses. Your fourth evolve is not a minor bonus. Yes. Whereas like Rengar gets. How much does he get from his bonetooth necklace? Let me see. I'm checking. He gets an extra 11 AD. He just gets some stats. Yep. Whereas Kha' Zix Evolve can literally help prevent that situation in the first place. So we talked about when should you actually evolve W instead of R or E? When you're in those situations, how do you decide which one of R or E to drop? Because you are literally always going to be evolving Q on Kha' Zix in Summoner's Rift because of the amount of power it adds to taking objectives. Even if you are super behind and can't assassinate anything. [00:50:36] Speaker A: I'd say the difference between R and E is do you have to get in somewhere quick or do you have to be able to get out of somewhere quick? Like especially with the E because it is such an increase in the jump plus the reset on takedown. It makes it such a powerful like. [00:50:54] Speaker B: Yep. Yep. So here's the other consideration is the jump evolve also gives a reset. So if you're really ahead, the jump evolve generally becomes correct. Just default as a second option. Because if you're really ahead, it is high likelihood that you will be able to Jump in one shot, A squishy, and then use it again to escape. Which means the value of the E of ort. Keep killing. Yes. So the value of that E evolve goes way up because you are ahead. Yes, absolutely. So that's Kha'. Zix. What about Viktor? So his Q evolve gives him a bigger shield. His W evolve, makes his spells apply as slow. And his E evolve. The default first one increases his wave clear and his E damage dramatically. Does it still? I thought that was removed when they reworked him. We're checking now. Anyway. When should you pick? When should I feel like E is [00:51:49] Speaker A: always the right choice for your first one just because it helps you get to those other standpoints much, much faster. Because one E can, once it's evolved, almost wipe the entire wave pretty closely. I know it can definitely kill the backline from the 1, the 1st, 2nd cat, or for the first cast E. And then it recasts itself kind of like in a fissure. So it just helps you get to those break points much easier and gives you almost double damage. [00:52:18] Speaker B: Yep. So I checked Victor's evolve on his W no longer pulls them to the center at all. It's just applies a slow on your other effects. [00:52:28] Speaker A: So on that, I still don't even think Q would be the right choice. Even if you're unable, if you're getting zoned off because you have to get up closer with Q just to try to get one minion, I feel like you would be much better off. I could, I could see it. If you're needing it for the shield, I can see it. That situation would just feel really, really bad if you ever had to. Yeah. If you're forced to go Q first on Victor, you're. You're gonna be so far behind unless you get into a really good team fight and get a really quick five assists or kills to level up, you level you up again really quick. But your last evolve, your last evolve on Victor, other than your R, which is just what happens naturally is your W. Like, I don't think there's a world where you're ever gonna take your W second or first ever? Definitely never first. There's, I guess if you're constantly team fighting too, in a situation where you guys are constantly fighting you, your W would be more beneficial in that aspect. But I definitely feel like with Victor, like your Q at this point becomes more beneficial just because like we talked about why it would be good first is your shield and the movement speed. [00:53:53] Speaker B: Absolutely. So another champion who should typically be going a specific order and has evolves is Kai'. [00:53:59] Speaker A: Sa. [00:54:00] Speaker B: In most games on Summoner's Rift, you're going to be getting Q evolve, then E evolve, then W evolve. Because that's with the way the itemization works mostly. Right? So when. When should you actually intentionally deviate from your default build on Kaisa to get an evolve out of order? [00:54:19] Speaker A: Aram Yep. [00:54:21] Speaker B: Those ones also typically do not ever get the W evolve. True. Yep. On Viktor, on Kha', Zix, as long as the game goes long enough, you will always get all your evolves. Kaisa won't. She will only get them if you build 100 of whatever the stat the evolve requires. Back when crit Kaisa was a thing, she would basically never get W evolve. Fair enough. Of course, the easiest answer is just play Lucian in the top lane. You don't have to worry about evolutions. You just steamroll the game. There you go. All right, guys, this has been episode 528 of the Four Words podcast. Seriously? Right in. We are out of questions. That was the last one. Theforwardspodcastmail.com I've been Jack Zoman from my community Names for Pillow Pet. Have a great night. [00:55:06] Speaker A: Good night. [00:55:08] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our [email protected] the Four Wards Podcast. And of course, send your questions to the Four Wards podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.