The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 534: Be Aggressive! Be, Be Aggressive!

[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 534 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Sohman and I've got with me two other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:49] Speaker C: I'm hot and not quite miserable but definitely not feeling up to usual. [00:00:53] Speaker B: And we've got Pillow Pat. [00:00:55] Speaker A: Hello. I am also hot and miserable. It is that time of year. [00:01:00] Speaker B: It's fucking raining here. [00:01:02] Speaker C: Yeah, it's raining at 85 degrees. [00:01:04] Speaker B: So guys, we are the Four Wards podcast. We have a discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. We've been playing a lot of norms recently. Come, come play with us. Link is in the episode description. We also do stream. I can be found at Twitch tv, Jacksonman, Mike can be found at Twitch TV, mikeofmanynames and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch tv Pillowpet and I want to give a shout out to our patrons. Shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Skippius, Esquire, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Yeet the dab for supporting the podcast at the Shoutout tier. Thank you guys so much. If you want to support the podcast, head over to patreon.com the Fourwards podcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month will get you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. Or just us telling stories and talking about owning real estate. So that happens. There will be a preview. By the way, if you are curious, there will be an audio preview of this week's Patreon bonus content on the Patreon. So go to patreon.com theforwards podcast, check out the preview, see if you like what you hear and then if you want the shout out, $10 a month gets you that same exclusive feed and we will shout you out at the top of every episode. And all those perks also apply to our general gaming podcast. Check out From 8 Bit to 4K on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Last but not least listeners, we got one question this week. Thank you. We need more. We always need more questions. Write into theforwardspodcastmail.com with your questions so we can answer them on the show again, that is the four wordspodcastmail.com or drop them in question submission in the Discord if you really want to, but I'd rather you email them. Alright, our topic for tonight and this is inspired by something that happened in a normal game and also some discussion that happened. Someone else in the Discord had also experienced something similar. We want to talk about a specific jungle playstyle that seems to be cropping up a lot more often recently. I'm guessing some streamers have popularized it and I want to talk about what it is, what to expect from it, how to deal with it and also if you want to play it yourself because frankly it is shockingly effective because people don't know what they're doing. Even though it has glaring weaknesses, it can be useful. So what are we talking about? We are talking about a hyper aggressive invade style. You are constantly in the enemy jungle making their jungler miserable. So let's talk about the basics of how this works. First, it only works with aggressive early junglers. Champions like Lee Sin Xin, Zhao Vi Wukong all work fine. Champions like Karthus or Brand Jungle or Nocturne not as much. They don't have a way to force people to fight. Jarvan is great at this. [00:04:05] Speaker C: There's a couple of like peak peak people where if you see them, expect it. Like Shaco for example. If you see a Shaco, expect to be invaded. [00:04:15] Speaker B: Not really this style. Shaco doesn't duel well. That's the key for jumpers, that they are strong duelists. Nunu and Shaco are notorious for stealing your shit and get away with it. Ivern same thing. This is more about they're going to come and fight you on every camp all the time and you don't get to take camps anymore. And they're just going to win the game because you are not a champion. I've played against this style not knowing what to expect. And I was literally level three at six minutes into the game because I couldn't get experience. So that's why we're talking about it. That's how effective it can be when your opponent doesn't respond properly. So the first part is you have to pick a champion that can do it. Someone who is aggressive can beat the shit out of you early. And what do they do? Well, they're usually going to get a ward to figure out where you start. If they're duo, they'll be duo with their mid lane and their mid lane will ward your raptors. If you see the enemy Mid laner ward Raptors before level two, you are getting invaded. Period. Just full stop. That is the biggest signpost that this is happening. If they. If the enemy mid laner has warded your Raptors before level two, you are being invaded. Whether or not you started the Raptors doesn't matter whether they see anything. It gives them information either way. [00:05:31] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. This is why like I frequently put down a ward near Raptors is because I am. [00:05:38] Speaker B: You do it in a suicidal way. [00:05:39] Speaker C: I'm doing it very aggressively. I'm. I'm doing it very aggressively for the same reason that they do. The information that you get can be invaluable. [00:05:50] Speaker B: So the key is once they know what your jungle path is, whether you start a blue side or red side, Your general clear. They probably know your champion and the patterns of clear you're likely to do. They will get to whatever their level break break point is where they can duel you. Whether that's two or three depends on their specific champion. And they will go to your next camp and they wait for you to start it and then kill you. They'll wait for you to start it so that you're taking damage from them and from the jungle camp. That's the entire play pattern. [00:06:19] Speaker C: They're. They're sitting there. They're hiding from things. This is also why a lot of people will sacrifice the speed of their camp to pull things into bushes to make sure you can tell if you're being invaded. This costs you speed. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Generally. There's a few spots where it doesn't. But. Yes. [00:06:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:38] Speaker B: So they're. They're gonna gank you on usually your third or fourth camp and they're gonna try to kill you or push you off of it. So they can take your camps themselves and you don't get anything that less. That last part is important. They will then have the respawn timers of those camps. They will be back the moment that camp spawns to kill you again and again and again. When someone is playing this style, whatever camps they have timers of you are not allowed to collect anymore. This is generally done with duo mids. Generally that mid will be someone who gets priority so that they can roam and support their jungler and their opponent. Your mid laner can't. [00:07:21] Speaker C: Yeah. And it does not matter that your mid laner is closer. Doesn't matter. They don't have the priority to move. They will either be pincer and instantly killed to try and come in to help you. Or they just can't. [00:07:33] Speaker B: Or they'll lose. So much experience and gold, they can't afford it. It's better to let you be fucked than to give up that wave. [00:07:39] Speaker C: So don't just sing the mid laner incessantly because he's not coming to help you. It's not always possible. [00:07:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Now the key here, yeah I was [00:07:47] Speaker A: gonna say as a like with a laner mindset there, there is a way that you can look at this and we are gonna get into this more. If you know that like there's a guaranteed kill on it. Like then yeah, you can forfeit your, your wave and the gold in that aspect. But you have to understand that you're laning priority. And we've talked, talked about it before, like Jax and Mike were saying, like you don't want to leave a double stacked wave for maybe getting something or helping your jungle because you're just going to lose way too much. And that's like Jack said, you're both going to fall behind from that but understanding when you can. And we're going to get into that a little bit more. But just, just know that like you don't just be like, oh well, jungle's getting invaded and there's nothing you can do. There are times where you can go in. [00:08:37] Speaker B: So once you know this is going on, you have a very specific thing you need to do. First of all, if you're a jungler who has already swapped a sweeper swap back, you need to place wards, you need to know where the enemy jungler is coming so you can not be there. Generally this strategy works because once they get ahead, they stay ahead by bullying the shit out of you. So don't let them, don't fight them. They're stronger than you are, so don't fight them. You know that oh my red is about to spawn and they have the timer on my red. Cool. I'm going to go take their red instead or I'm going to go gank the other side of the map. Just make plays away from where you know they're invading to fight you. Because if they're just trading camps with you, who gives a shit? You're trading camps, you're going even this one. And also they're going to get mad and make mistakes because they're not, their strategy is not going according to plan. [00:09:37] Speaker C: This, this other portion really depends on what kind of a person you are facing with an invade. Are they non stop farming at you or are they farming at you and then immediately grabbing all the objectives on the map? Because if you know a big objective Dragon Herald grubs are popping up. You suddenly have a safety window to take your your camps again. Because they're going to be doing that on spawn to make sure you have no backroom window if they have proven to do this. Because if you do it once and suddenly they don't have access to come in and fight you. Okay, fine, perfect. But if they're going to sacrifice objectives to just keep attacking you, some of them will. And you will never know which kind it is until the game starts. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. So the other part of this, and this is where I think a lot of the frustration comes from, is when they are leaving, when they're taking your camps, when they're fighting you off, they're leaving wards behind. People playing this style are not switching to sweeper. They don't give a shit. Because they are playing the style to exploit you not knowing how to play against it. If you have wards down, they're probably not clearing them. If you're duo with someone, set traps. I have played against people like this since I learned how it works where Mike, you've seen it where I'm like, okay, he's coming for my raptors. [00:11:01] Speaker C: Oh yeah, 100%. [00:11:02] Speaker B: And I call you over and we literally just sit there and just blow him the fuck up when he arrives. Because now it's 2v1. He wasn't anticipating it or where their mid laner is constantly roaming with him. And it would be a 2v2. We just go 3 man gank bot or 4 man gank bot while they're doing it. By the time they arrive, it's too late. We've already killed their bot lane and now it's four on two against them. Because that's the other thing this strategy does. This strategy invades specifically on bot half of the map because they then after they've killed you, they go kill the bot lane. [00:11:38] Speaker C: A lot of it does the, it's rare as a blue side one, a lot of blue sides will go in and take red side. So the top half, if they're playing on blue, they'll go in and destroy top half. Because top half is usually the second half of the where people start going. And so you'll see generally early on top half is where a lot of this happens. And then they start to transition lower and lower and lower as their mid laner starts to move with them. And then they start using this to destroy the rest of the map. [00:12:07] Speaker B: All right, so we've, we've said set traps or make plays elsewhere. Make sure to put down words buy control wards. The other part I want to emphasize, don't let yourself be tilted. The strategy relies on frustrating you and flustering you and making you make compounding mistakes. So don't let it keep your mentals in check. Play to your wincon. Play to ganking for someone. If you're a farming type jungler, if you're a Master Yi and they're doing this to you and you're just useless, you can still gank. Is your top laner doing well? Just go and join the gank. It doesn't matter that you're weak because you're still adding a body that can help get the kill. Unless It's a level 6 allowy or maybe a Darius. Don't do that against those champs. They'll just be better off because you're there. [00:12:56] Speaker C: Mordekaiser etc. Yeah, yeah. [00:12:58] Speaker B: Don't get Mordekaiser ult it as a level four Master Yi and just be sad. [00:13:03] Speaker C: So there's another thing that you can do and this, this depends. Champion by champion. A lot of jungle champions have very specific break points that once they hit they are now strong. The person that could beat you before can't anymore. One of the prime examples of this is Volibear. Volibear has a two item breakpoint and a one item breakpoint where he is not great, not great. Good. Boom. Who fucking duels him? And it's very few people. So know your champion is. The next thing that you need to know is if you are playing something that has a perfect scaling breakpoint. Suddenly if you are able to avoid long enough and they don't and they don't have like a three level lead and an item lead on you. This is also important because it doesn't matter if your breakpoint is that good if you're three levels behind and they've go built crit fucking Rengar. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Yep. [00:13:57] Speaker A: So yeah and I mean I know we've touched on it but I. Your biggest way to deal with this is just always going to be vision and try to early communicate with your laners like two is always better than one. If you can catch your mid laner in a priority state just throw some pings like an assist ping out like hey, help me. I know this is coming. It's all right to have a bodyguard. You just can't. You gotta like look at your wave states, especially your support and adc. [00:14:25] Speaker B: So here's one thing that I think a lot of people think is the right play and don't do it. You will Yourself ganking the enemy mid. When they're playing this style again, they're usually duo. Their jungler is always going to be nearby. If you gank the enemy mid and you're behind, you're opting into probably a 2v2 that you will lose. [00:14:44] Speaker C: If it's a. If it's a noticeable free gank. Like this person has overextended their at half health. But they're bullying and you have the ability to kill it. Yeah. Sometimes they just play cocky because they think they have their. Their person in their back pocket. Don't mistake a free kill for a [00:14:59] Speaker B: fight for a bait. [00:15:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Because this is something that Jax and I will do quite frequently is we will have. All right. I know. I've got my CC back up. I'm at half health. Let him come. Yeah. [00:15:11] Speaker B: We've gotten a lot of kills because you're at like a quarter health. And then you just mausolt them when they try to dive in on you. And I kill them while they're held in place. [00:15:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:15:19] Speaker B: It's so dumb that 100%. [00:15:21] Speaker C: The other thing that you can do really early on. And this is something that you need to know from Champion select. If you see one of those champions, change your smite patterns. [00:15:31] Speaker B: Yep. [00:15:31] Speaker C: Because a lot of them will save smite to steal your camp if they are expecting to try and take the camp from you and use that level to kill you. [00:15:42] Speaker B: Not even use that level. Every single large monster you kill as a jungler gives you a big fucking heal. They are dueling you while you're fighting a monster. And them dueling you lets them smite it to gain a bunch of health. They win the duel. If you smite it sometimes that means you win the duel even though you started taking monster damage at the beginning of the fight. [00:16:03] Speaker C: Now, we've been going on entirely about being against this. There are champions that you can play that this style does not work well against. Because the champions that you are playing either have massive advantages in the jungle over everyone else, or the design of their champion gets more and more dangerous as certain conditions happen. Like Olaf. Olaf is one of these people's nightmares. [00:16:30] Speaker B: Yep. Olaf, for those who don't know, gets attack speed and lifesteal the lower his health gets. Yeah. [00:16:36] Speaker C: Aha. [00:16:37] Speaker B: Which means he's better at dueling you if he's already damaged at the start of the duel. [00:16:41] Speaker A: Same for Warwick. [00:16:42] Speaker B: As weird as that sounds. [00:16:43] Speaker C: Warwick is what? [00:16:44] Speaker B: Warwick. Same thing. If he's below half health, he heals on every single auto attack. [00:16:49] Speaker A: And if you're below half health, he's gonna attack you faster. [00:16:51] Speaker B: That's just how the monster is below half health. He can hit it and then start attacking you faster. So he may, when you start the fight be turning on you and you're already taking the accelerated damage when you're not even below half yet. [00:17:04] Speaker C: Or. People like Skarner have massive advantages because of how they deal with terrain. [00:17:09] Speaker A: Yep. [00:17:11] Speaker B: Also on that note, if you are dealing with someone who is playing hyper aggressive invader, don't blow your movement spells to get to the camps. Don't use your Skarner wall walk before you get there. To go through a wall and get there two seconds faster when that means you don't have it up for the fight that is about to happen because they're invading you. There are many champions. This is true for the other thing [00:17:38] Speaker C: that like immediately that I can, I can think of as a thing you can do as the jungler. If you can tell this is something that they want to do immediately alter your first path. If you look at that and go, this is someone who's going to be doing an invaderly. If you see like the game that we were playing was Naafiri Akshan, that's you can tell they're going to try and do an early invade. [00:18:01] Speaker B: So I have a perfect example of that. One of the games we played the other day, they warded our raptors while they were being done as the very first camp. The mid laner pushed hard and walked up and warded raptors while our briar was still on. Raptors. [00:18:17] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [00:18:18] Speaker B: And I told him they now know which way you're clearing. Your blue's probably gone. Because he did raptors into red. This had literally not even crossed his mind that that was important information in this particular game. They didn't act on it, but if they were paying attention, they saw he went down after raptors. They know his blue side jungle is free and clear to just take if they're in a position to capitalize. That's dangerous for you to give that information, but you can use that against them. I have played against this kind of stuff where I'm doing my Raptors as my first camp because I'm playing like amumu or fucking kayn or something. And they drop a ward on it immediately. So I leave my raptors through the bush towards mid lane, but then double back to the blast cone behind red and blast cone into red, bypassing their vision. They think I've gone to blue quadrant, but my red buff is getting Killed. Finish the red. Finish the Krugs. Now I can go to blue. The same path I was going to do. I spent two seconds moving and now they're going to invade to steal my red that's already gone. [00:19:25] Speaker A: You can also use the information against them by just setting up a gank on like mid lane. Be like, hey, they think I'm going to red buff. And then you just loop around. [00:19:33] Speaker B: Yep. [00:19:33] Speaker A: And go through mid lane. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Or if you're a level two ganker, [00:19:36] Speaker C: especially if you know they're coming and you get there first, you can set a trap for them. Because a lot of the times they rely explicitly on you taking damage and then coming in at the end. If you're there with your combo up as they're coming in and you blow that on them, they've lost half their health and they don't have the advantage they used to have. Never. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:58] Speaker C: Assume that a bushwhack is something that can't help you. [00:20:02] Speaker B: It can be very effective. So the last part of this, maybe you're hearing us talk about how frustrating all this is, and you're like, I want to frustrate people. How do you do this for yourself? Well, we've kind of touched on some of it already. Have a mid lane duo. Have them get vision. That gives you the info you need to be able to make decisions. Go into their jungle, wait for them to start the camp, and then fight them so that they're fighting you and the camp at the same time. But the important part of it is not the first play. The first play is the setup. It often goes well for you because they're not expecting it. But what makes this strategy work in lower elo or against inexperienced junglers is the repetition. You now have the timer on that camp because you killed them or pushed them off of it and took the camp, whatever it might be. You know when it's going to respawn. You know when the red buff is going to respawn. You know when the blue buff is going to respawn. Once you have timers on enemies, buffs especially, but camps in general, you know when they're likely to return. Generally, people don't want to leave their camps alive for any period of time. So if they have a camp that just respawned, that's probably where they're about to be. So that lets you plan your re invades to keep bullying the guy. Because one of the most effective ways to win in League of Legends is putting one guy really, really far behind. [00:21:27] Speaker C: There is another Thing that you will start. You will start doing this more and more the later in the game it gets because of how quickly camps start to die. Second and third and fourth clears. You are going there to take the camp and then set up a gank. [00:21:43] Speaker B: Yes. Because you have the timer. You can literally be on the camp when it spawns. Clear it in five seconds. If they did not have the timer, they won't be there in time. If they also have the timer, probably don't set up for that play. But if you know they don't have the timer. Yeah, just you can blow it up because you're one item, whatever you are. And they'll arrive a few seconds later because they'll know when it's up, but they won't have the countdown telling them, oh, it's up in 25 seconds. [00:22:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And all you need to get the counter is to see the camp go down. So, yep, having a vision is just as good for them as getting the killer initially. [00:22:23] Speaker B: So I want to touch on one other thing. There is one specific rune that is grossly overpowered for this style. Sixth Sense in the Domination Tree will tell you if you have walked near a ward. People playing this style are running warding totem for longer than normal for junglers because they want to leave wards behind for their Re Invades, which means they need to have sixth sense so that they know when they have been spotted so that they don't walk into a trap. This also creates a weird incentive. If they're invading, you throw a ward at their face to trigger Sixth Sense to put it on cooldown. It sounds stupid, but it takes away their safety on the Re Invade. [00:23:09] Speaker A: So we're talking about how you want to if you want to play it yourself. And I think a really important part of that is understanding which champions are good with it and which ones you want to kind of not go into it. So coming down to it, if you're wanting to get into it, that's great. You need to know, is your champion pool? Like, does it have that option? So, I mean, we've talked about a few of them. Like, Naafiri is really good into it just because she has really strong upfront damage, all because mostly of her W, which gives her extra dogs and attack damage. You got Lee Sin that gets the energy usage, gives him extra ad attack speed. All these champions have in common is they're getting ad buffs for most of their abilities, or their abilities give them the dueling power and a lot of this damage that they're doing. Is sustained damage and it's not a whole lot of burst while they do have burst, but it's also just mostly sustained damage. So take a look at your chant pool. Make sure you're getting in. What you're getting into is something you're comfortable with. You can look at the. I would watch some guides on it. Don't jump into it blind. Maybe take a look at a guide, figure out how people are doing it correctly, take it into norms, practice it out. Don't jump into rank trying this out. Because if you go, you know, and if you mess it up, then you're going to set your whole tempo is going to be behind the rest of the game. [00:24:37] Speaker C: So if, if this has been something that like our friend has been absolutely annoying you, there are champions that this does not work against as well as any others we mentioned, one being Olaf because of just how powerful he gets when he gets at low health. There are other junglers who have differences in how they, they deal with the jungle that make them very good against this for multiple different reasons. So Nunu, you don't fight Nunu in a creep jungle because he heals it and he's taking that camp. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Yep. [00:25:10] Speaker C: Nunu is one of the best people against invades because he is just better at killing the jungle than you are. Ivern doesn't have to fight the jungle, [00:25:18] Speaker A: but then you're stuck playing Ivern depending [00:25:20] Speaker C: on how it is. Iverns have been obscene. They're not combat oriented, but they are very good against the style because they don't have to fight the jungle. Their pattern can be anything it wants to be. They don't have to have a set clear path the way other champions do because they don't have to worry about things like, well, if I go here, then I'm gonna have to worry about taking this. They have a completely separate jungle, clear path and pattern because of just how ivern works. But it also makes him a nightmare because he's also one of the best invaders in the game. You can just instant clear camps. No one else in the game can clear a camp as fast as Ivan. The other one that like my mind immediately went to, we, we mentioned him early on. Warwick is great against this. He is very good against this because of. Oh no, you've got me and the camp low. Hit the camp. Now I'm murdering you because he's hit a low health camp target. If you're having problems with these things heavily consider champions like this. Another one actually I just thought of right now, Zack. If there's a champion. He's hitting and the camp he is now getting significantly more percent max health healing because it doesn't cost him anything extra to hit the abilities he's already hitting. But now that he's hit two targets, suddenly he has more health globules. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:26:41] Speaker C: All right. [00:26:42] Speaker B: Any of the thoughts about hyper aggressive invading? [00:26:45] Speaker C: Oh, I did have another one. Don't. We were talking about not doing this in solo queue. Yeah. The strategy relies around you and a paired partner to make it fully optimized. Duo. Q. Yes. Solo queue. Probably not. [00:27:01] Speaker B: You can do some invades can work, [00:27:03] Speaker C: but you can do some invades. But relying on the hyper aggressive non stop invading really wants to have a partner in there or you're trying to guarantee every game you will be the one who's carrying that game. Most people who are listening to us don't have that degree of surety in their skill. If you've got a partner, go for it. [00:27:25] Speaker B: Absolutely. All right. We have a trinket tip. This one comes from Listener Yeet the Dab who writes if you have cash back as a rune, you can often sell your Doran's item for a completed item and then use the cash back gold to repurchase your Doran's item afterwards. Now I do want to emphasize this is not always a correct thing to do, but if it means getting a power spike before an objective or when there's a moment where you need a power spike, now this can be the correct thing to do whether or not you use the cash back gold to rebuy your Doran's item. [00:28:01] Speaker A: I am so greedy that I'll spend an extra two minutes going to clear a wave then backing like I hate. Like selling my starters item Like I absolutely hate doing it for an item because you lose what D or D Blade gives you what, eight eighty one [00:28:20] Speaker C: thousand eighty Something like eighty health two and a half. [00:28:24] Speaker A: Like it's. It's just so good. I hate selling my starter item for anything. Like we're not even. You know, this is. He's saying buying it back. So that's fine. I just like I despise selling my starter item if I'm just to buy a like a mythic item, legendary whatever they call them now a completed item because you lose combat stats. It just feels always so bad. [00:28:48] Speaker B: Yep. And that's the idea of this trinket tip is with cash back you can often basically spend the refund that would normally go towards your next item to get the item slightly early without having to sell your Starter item, it stalls your overall gold because you're not getting gold from cash back anymore. You're basically losing that to the sell price difference. [00:29:12] Speaker C: Bunch of trading for combat stats. [00:29:14] Speaker B: You're trading it for immediate combat power. So that's why if you are doing that right before like a dragon or something like that, it can be correct to do if you have the rune. Okay, we have some listener questions from Toast who writes how do you convert leads to wins? There may is the jungler of I have a lead or I have a lane with a lead. How do I push those leads to destroy the Nexus? So the answer to this is going to vary depending on what champions we're talking about, what ELO you're in, what game time we're at. There's a lot of variables. So generally speaking, if you're a jungler and you are personally strong or one of your laners is personally strong, you group up and you go kill the enemy, whoever is killable. As simple as that sounds. In solo queue, people don't tend to play very conservative, concede things and fight for objective styles. They fight, they kill each other. Solo queue is a very bloody environment. That's why we often say like what works in pro may not work in your solo queue. Even if you are that good and you're not. [00:30:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:25] Speaker B: So a lot of times I would say most of the time the correct answer is literally just group up with whoever else is strong and kill the people nearby and then once they're dead, take objectives. [00:30:38] Speaker C: My next thought immediately is Pillow's bread and butter style is the top lane champions. If you are on someone like Yorick, someone like Trundle, someone like Nasus, you're ahead. You make them come to you. 2v1 3v1. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Yep. [00:30:53] Speaker C: You shove that lane and you will win. Significant number of 2v1s Force them to give you more and more resources to stop you from taking their base. [00:31:06] Speaker A: My first initial thought reading this question is thinking of the term strong side and weak side and to if you're a jungler, that's ahead or you got a lane that's ahead and like Jack said, you want to gravitate towards that side. You don't, you know, and I'm going to throw a little sports analogy here. Say you're at a baseball game and you know the left field isn't catching the balls, you're not going to. You're not going to hit towards the right field. You're going to go where you're going to score the points. So same thing goes here, you're going to go where like the sure thing is most likely going to be. So that's how you're going to keep pushing your lead. Your top laner might be, you know, weak sided and you're just going to have to deal with him being mad at you like for never going up there. Because that's just how the game has to be won. You can't babysit somebody and play to their mental and lose the game over it. Like you have to just focus your where your strong side is and carry your victory through that side in the mid lane. [00:32:04] Speaker B: That being said, sometimes using them as bait can also be correct because if they are feeding and they're a lost lane, their opponent is likely to have a big shutdown. So if you can bring your strong friends and go kill their strong person, you will snowball even further into the league. Make sure you're confident you can do it because if you bring your strong friends and their strong person wins the [00:32:26] Speaker C: fight, the game is over, as happened to us yesterday. [00:32:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. Which will bring us into our next topic of this question. [00:32:39] Speaker B: What are your go to ways to detail yourself? [00:32:43] Speaker A: So let me jump in here. First, I went oh in like 94 last night against this Smurf Gragas as a Kong. [00:32:51] Speaker B: That bad. But it was pretty bad and I [00:32:55] Speaker A: had all rights to probably be tilted and just try to force blame somewhere else. I just knew that like man, I'm, I'm fighting too early. I was getting a little upset. I just got to sit back and remind myself like, hey, there's another game after this one. Like it's going to be fine. This isn't going on my, you know, resume and like this is just, this game's going to be over soon and I got to stay positive for my teammates. Like because that mental mentality, I could have easily just started getting upset and frustrated and talking in voice comms or chat or whatever that's going to bring someone else's mental down. And then all of a sudden your fun gaming session turns into an awkward we know this guy's upset. Do we even talk to him? Like don't be that guy. Just, just remember that, like be the positive guy that the team needs. And then hopefully your team is less likely to be tilted because you're a positive guy. [00:33:52] Speaker B: At some point. I am not as good at as I would like. [00:33:55] Speaker C: Now I do not tilt easily. I get angry, I get frustrated, but I don't hardcore tilt easily. When I do, I need to back away from the game entirely for a little while. [00:34:09] Speaker B: Yep. [00:34:09] Speaker C: Because when that happens, I spiral and my spiral goes deep and hard and it's noticeable to the point where man, I need to either go spend like a half hour, go grab some food, go go to the bathroom, just walk away from the game for a little bit because nothing is going to continue. Even if the next game is a good game, something will be off with my play because of it and I know I would have been able to do better. Even if I play well, something's going to be ticking me off at the same time. So I'm the same way time away from the game. [00:34:43] Speaker B: If you've ever tuned into my stream Twitch TV Jack Solomon by the way, and seen me just get absolutely fucking giga trolled by the dumbest angriest children you've ever seen after a couple of those, I'm booting up a game on my switch. I'm booting up Path of Exile. If there's a current Path of Exile season, I'm booting up something else because League of Legends will not detail you from League of Legends. At least in my case and I think in most people's cases I can [00:35:16] Speaker C: sometimes do a mayhem or like completely shift game modes to something else because it it fundamentally feels different. But that isn't always enough. [00:35:27] Speaker B: Sometimes I just also mayhem can just go hey you know what? We're only going to offer you shit augments get and then the tilt spiral worsens. [00:35:35] Speaker A: Yeah, just be tilt proof. The strive to be tilt proof. [00:35:42] Speaker B: So we have one more question from Toast, which is when is it good to buy Serpent's Fang? [00:35:49] Speaker C: There's more than one answer to this because there are actually several specific situations in which even under normal circumstances it is correct. [00:35:58] Speaker B: Alright, so let's start with the freebie. Are you already a Lethality champion and the enemy has shields regardless of how many shields or what shields? Yes, Serpent's Fang should be your second or third item if you are already a lethality champion. Because shields are specifically designed to prevent getting blown the fuck up, which is what you're building lethality to do. Yes, generally like you'll still find there are edge case exceptions, but generally if you're playing any kind of ad assassin and they have a lulu, they have a Janna, they have a riven, they have any of these types of champions that get shields, just build a Serpent's Fang second so you can blow those people up. [00:36:44] Speaker C: Still, if here here starts becoming the interesting part of this is the second portion. If you can sometimes Build lethality, but it's not optimal for you. Always depending on the amount of shields. It's the correct decision. It doesn't matter if they have Lulu or Jana or plus a Riven. And then they also have like a Scion. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Tom Kench Scion. Yeah. [00:37:09] Speaker C: If there's that many shields, it's just correct. [00:37:12] Speaker A: Yep. [00:37:12] Speaker B: And that's the other part is it can be correct regardless of what your normal build is. If you're an 80 champion and they're that shield heavy. [00:37:21] Speaker A: You also want to look at how easily can you apply the Serpent's Fang. How many shields are there compared to how easily you can apply? I think it applies in all physical damage. Like so if it's an AOE at [00:37:34] Speaker B: all, like it'll even be. It applies to all damage, does not care if your damage is physical. And it reduces shields they already have on them by the same amount as it reduces subsequent shields. It is just a giant you2 shields period. So as long as you're a champion scales with ad like please, for the love of God, on a mage, do not buy Serpent's Fang just because they have shields. You're wasting way too much gold on something that adds no damage to you. But if you are a marksman, if you are something like a Jace who has lots of build options and they're shield heavy, strongly consider Serpent's Fang. Maybe. Maybe third or fourth. [00:38:22] Speaker C: I'm going to give a terrible answer that has a niche case if they have multiple shields that are saving people from your assassinations. Akali and Katarina have the ability to get a Serpent's Fang if the only reason they're surviving you is is because of those shields. Consistently. [00:38:42] Speaker B: Those are magic damage assassins who still scale with ad. That's the key and why Mike is bringing it up. [00:38:49] Speaker A: Don't forget about Sion. [00:38:51] Speaker C: Sion is one of those champions where sometimes it doesn't matter if there's any other sources. His shield is just worth breaking. Riven's. No, I do. [00:38:59] Speaker B: I think Pillow was saying, don't forget if you're playing as Scion. [00:39:02] Speaker C: Oh, that's like. [00:39:03] Speaker A: You can build it on Scion, like, because he. He loves lethality as well. I mean, it's obviously it's never. It's never the right choice to build a Serpent's fag as Scion, but he can easily apply it. [00:39:17] Speaker B: But if you're playing Sion and your team has a Diana, a mage middle, a Ziggs bot and a mage support or something stupid like that, where you're literally the only option. And you're against a Tahm Kench. A Riven. A Janna. Yeah. By Serpent's Fang. It's correct in that context. [00:39:37] Speaker C: Does not apply the Serpent's fang rock. [00:39:40] Speaker B: It just says damage. [00:39:42] Speaker C: Which means potentially things like Sunfire plus Serpent's Fang. Well, might apply that if you're like. [00:39:49] Speaker B: Because it is. Because it is just damage. Things like Sion's Roar of the Slayer or the explosion of his shield will also apply it. Even though those are magic damage and don't benefit from lethality. [00:40:05] Speaker A: That's where I was thinking is like his shield explosion can start a big old aoe of it. But like Mike said, if it works on Sunfire, we'll have to test it. That. I mean, it would work on those kind of niche cases. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Yep. [00:40:17] Speaker A: But I mean, we're getting too far into the weeds on who can build it. But you're wanting to know when is it good? Is just when there's a lot of shields. If there's shields. If there's a big beneficial shield, like a shin or like something. Something along the lines. [00:40:31] Speaker B: Shen is a perfect example because Shen's R is specifically. It's used either as a we're setting up a dive and I'm coming in with my diver or a oh, this guy's getting attacked. Let me save him. And if you're cutting that shield by 50% because that's the other part. Shield reaver. The effect on Serpent's fang is a 50% reduction in all shields when applied by a melee champion. If you're a ranged champion, it's only a 35% reduction. So the other aspect of this is if you have a melee champion already applying it, don't buy this as the marksman. It does not stack. [00:41:08] Speaker C: There is another caveat to this thing. If it's low impact shielding, that is like ipso facto shielding. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Things like Rumble Shield, Eclipse, Rumble Shield, Lee Sin Shield. They're shields, but they're not big ass shields or pivotal moment shields. They're just helps reduce the overall damage taken during a fight. [00:41:31] Speaker C: Yeah, these. This is not the time to do this. Seeing a seraphine doesn't mean you need a serpent's fat. Even though she applies shields everywhere. [00:41:40] Speaker B: At least not early. [00:41:42] Speaker C: If. If they are the ones who have the power. And there's another kids. If the person who applies or has the large shield has the power, they are a 11 in three Seraphine. Yeah. Okay. Serpent's fang's probably worth it. Now. [00:41:57] Speaker A: If you have a lease in support or you see A lease in support. He's probably going to shield build. Just get a serpent's fang and it [00:42:02] Speaker C: makes the whole thing apparently fucking not. [00:42:06] Speaker B: We literally played with a fucking Lee Sin support. Going the shield build against a Camille support. By the way, that player was just fucking God awful. [00:42:18] Speaker C: He had the perfect optimal point to play Lee Sin and he none of us expected him to be versus Camille as a support. Lee Sin support, like if you think about it, is a perfect counter to Camille's support. [00:42:32] Speaker B: He can just ult her out of her ult every time. He has great all in and fighting power. This guy was not a good Lee Sin pilot. [00:42:39] Speaker A: He rushed Rabadons. Like second item Rabadons. He got second items Rabadons. [00:42:45] Speaker B: Yeah, he went ardent sensor Rabadons. Which meant he just didn't do anything. It was terrible. Don't be like that guy instead. Who gives a shit about shields when you're Lucian in the top lane and you're just blowing up their nexus at 10 minutes? [00:42:58] Speaker C: Well, he is one of the perfect people to apply Shieldbreaker. Screw it. I'm gonna do all the AoE. His damage is AoE very quickly, very easily. Splits it. Does a lot of it. And in the top lane, he's facing a lot of people with shields. Your rivens, your scions, good servants. Breaker on Lucian top. [00:43:15] Speaker B: Why not? All right. This has been episode 534 of the Four Wards podcast. I've been Jack Soman from Mike and many names for Pillow Pet. Have a great night. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Good night. [00:43:26] Speaker C: Good night, everybody. [00:43:28] 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.