The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 538: Locke Talk

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, what's up? It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven Jerks and Velkoz. [00:00:13] Speaker A: And you're listening to the Four Wards Podcast here to help you move forward in league. Hello and welcome to episode 538 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Selman and I've got my usual co host with me. It's Mike of many names. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Did you guess it was me? It was me. [00:00:49] Speaker A: It was you, Mike. [00:00:52] Speaker B: I'm not Dio. [00:00:54] Speaker A: Take the compliment. Guys. We are the Four Wards Podcast. We have a discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out, come play games with us. It is a great time. Been playing on a lot of norms and mayhem and it's generally just chill vibes. That's what we're looking for. So come come play with us. We also do stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch tv, Jacksellman, Mike can be found at Twitch tv, mikeofmany names and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch tv Pillowpet. And of course I want to give a shout out to our patrons, Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Yeet the dab for supporting us at the shoutout tier. Thank you guys so much for supporting the show. Now if you guys want to support the podcast, head over to patreon.com theforwardspodcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. And $10 a month gets you that same exclusive feed. And we'll shout you out at the top of every episode. And all benefits also apply to our general gaming podcast. Check out From 8 Bit to 4K on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Last but not least, listeners, you answered the call. We do have questions this week. Thank you. We will need more. So write in to the4wardspodcastmail.com with your questions that you want answered on the show or drop them in the question submission channel on the Discord. The email is preferred, but either is fine. So our main topic tonight, it's really straightforward. It's Locke, the new champion. We're gonna talk about him. We promised it last week. Both Mike and I have actually played games on this champion. I think I've played more than you have. [00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah, by virtue of when we've allowed to play. [00:02:38] Speaker A: So this champion is basically pick ban in norms. Right now he's in Every game he's not banned in, it feels like. And he's banned in a lot of game. So Mike has a lot of experience playing against lox. [00:02:54] Speaker B: Yes, I do. [00:02:55] Speaker A: But because we kept getting red side when we were playing together, he doesn't have much experience playing with locks. [00:03:01] Speaker B: No, I only had one game to play mid lane lock because out of the like nine games we played together, we got red side. Eight of those games. [00:03:13] Speaker A: I think it was seven, but he was banned in the other one. [00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds right. [00:03:16] Speaker A: It was ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Even in solo queue, like outside of a norm environment, he's sitting at a 69% ban rate in emerald on NA. [00:03:27] Speaker B: Nice. [00:03:28] Speaker A: Yes. And a 14% pick rate. So he's in 84% of all games on emerald NA. If I drop it to gold plus his ban rate drops to a mere 64%. Yeah. He's basically perma band right now. So despite the fact that he's near perma band, let's talk about him, what he does, how he works, how to play as him, and how to play against him because he is getting through about a third of games. So that you guys will know what in the world this new champion does. So let's start with just a basic overview of what Locks Kid is. He is a melee AP assassin. Think like Echo, because Echo is probably the closest comparison point you can make for Echo. [00:04:14] Speaker B: Echo and Diana are like the two premier burst AP melee assassins. [00:04:20] Speaker A: Yes. So Luck's passive. Just gives him some on hit damage. It scales with ap. It scales based on target's missing health, but it's just on hit damage. It's whatever. Locks Q is a skill shot that pierces targets and deals damage and slows them and marks them. And then while they are marked, your basic attacks or your E will consume that mark to deal bonus damage. We'll talk about numbers in a little bit because it's kind of insane. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:51] Speaker A: The locks W. Yep. [00:04:54] Speaker B: Keep going. We'll talk about a second. [00:04:56] Speaker A: Locks W gives him a bunch of attack speed and movement speed for six seconds. During those six seconds, he starts taking damage and he stores damage taken as gray health. When those six seconds expire or when he recasts the ability he heals for the damage he took from the damage over time. Roughly, it's. It's not precise. If you build health items, you can actually take more damage from the dot than you heal. Plus the gray health that you've stored up. The gray health portion has an AP ratio. It gets big. [00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:36] Speaker A: And that's the whole ability. His E is a blink that also empowers his next auto attack to allow him to dash and deal damage in an AOE. Again, this is very Echo like. So Echo has a dash that then lets his next auto attack blink. This is literally just the opposite. It's a blink that lets his next auto attack dash. Important to note, Both parts are AoE damage. So that's the big difference is Echoes is only damage on the second half and it's single target. This one's AOE and it damages on both parts. And then Lock's ultimate is weird. He throws an object onto the ground, it creates a zone and everything in that zone is slowed and then gets marked. And then if the marked enemies and it deals some damage, it's not amazing damage, but if the marked enemies drop below an execute threshold, they are killed. And if he kills at least one person, then the thing he threw drops to the ground and he can pick it up to gain a stack, reduce the cooldown on his next ultimate and those stacks increase the execute threshold that Lock has to do with aim for. I have had games where I'm getting like seven plus stacks on this where you're getting like a 15% health execute. [00:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it is half a percent per champion. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Yes. You're not going to get like in a real world game. You're never going to see this scale dramatically. [00:07:05] Speaker B: This is not scaling a bunch of executes. [00:07:07] Speaker A: It will get to where he's executing around 15 to 20% health, which is. [00:07:11] Speaker B: This is. This is not scaling like a sol scaling. This is scaling more like smaller scales execute in a much smaller scale anymore. Oh, they took that away. That's right. [00:07:22] Speaker A: So yeah, it's kind of like a sol's like center of his slow zone execute. But it scales up slower but starts higher. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Yes. [00:07:34] Speaker A: That's the easy way to think of it. [00:07:36] Speaker B: You can expect to probably end with between 15 to 20% if it's a really high kill game and you're using your ult properly. [00:07:45] Speaker A: If you're really fed in a high kill game, you'll have like a 20% execute by the end of the game. Yes. I'm sure Van der Lul has or will make a video where he scales it up to 100% by playing a custom game with his friends. Yes. Theoretically, if you get 180 stacks or whatever it is 176 stacks, you can just insta kill anyone with this Ultra. There is no cap on the the percent health exit. Yeah, but that's not the like the Scaling is near inconsequential. Okay, so that's an overview of his abilities. So assassin's clearly his role, right? He is an assassin. [00:08:22] Speaker B: Yes. By far an assassin. Because of how his W works. He doesn't work as well as a Bruiser as he does as an assassin. [00:08:33] Speaker A: Yep. Because if you build bruiser items, you increase the amount you hurt yourself from the W. And that. [00:08:39] Speaker B: That really like that explicitly is the problem. He. He does. His regain on health is like Rengar's. It's an insane burst. [00:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I played a game of him earlier today where I did build Immortal Path. So I had increased healing when I was below half, which does work on him, by the way. It's really good. I think it's by far his best boot, personally. But I was healing for well over a thousand on the gray health heal when I reactivated it. [00:09:16] Speaker B: If you use. [00:09:17] Speaker A: Because I built ap, right? And because I built AP and not Bruiser, I had rocket belt. That was the only health item I had. The. The damage over time portion was completely healed when I recast it on its own. Like I could use the ability at will. If I take no damage, it would heal itself. So the damage over time was mostly ignorable. [00:09:40] Speaker B: So I'm going to do a quick overview of the. [00:09:43] Speaker A: Also important to note, he can recast this while cc'd. [00:09:48] Speaker B: Yes. I'm gonna do a quick overview of some of the things that aren't very like common to understand on his abilities. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Yes. [00:09:55] Speaker B: Because each of them has something about them that is weird and unique. For starters, his Q which has three casts to it has no reduction. Each shot is full damage on every target. [00:10:08] Speaker A: And to be fair, it doesn't do very much damage in and of itself. [00:10:12] Speaker B: The the damage is not. The damage for the most part has a very low ratio for itself. But its base damage is like 150 on the shot. So if you hit all three, you do a lot of damage. Each one you don't use refunds some of its cooldown and its mana. So if you don't use both parts, you can get 70% of the cooldown and mana back. [00:10:38] Speaker A: 70% at level 18, it's 40% at level 1. [00:10:42] Speaker B: It's. It's based on level with the refund, not based on it's level. For the solo ignition thing you got through the. The base portion of that. The like. Yeah, you can do this. Well cc'd. This has a 120% AP ratio. [00:11:00] Speaker A: For the gray health cap. [00:11:01] Speaker B: For the gray health cap because it is a Cap numerically for how much damage he can take. So this is why he needs to be an AP caster. But there is also movement speed in that AP cap. You're getting movement speed for AP for this cast because it's also your movement speed and your attack speed bonus. Yeah. [00:11:23] Speaker A: I want to put this in context. I said I healed for a thousand health. If I had taken more damage, I could have healed for more because I had 800 AP and that could have been up to about a 1600 healing. Yeah. I just hadn't taken enough gray health damage for it to heal quite that much. [00:11:44] Speaker B: His. His E. As we've said, it does the. The burst and aoe both times. That first shot isn't what consumes the procs. You have to do the auto attack to consume your Q procs. [00:11:59] Speaker A: No. Both parts will consume your Q proc. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Oh, well, he's. [00:12:03] Speaker A: I did. I just did it today. Both parts. [00:12:07] Speaker B: Never mind. Never mind. That second second portion of this. I know for a fact he gains increased attack range for that next attack. [00:12:16] Speaker A: Yes. A lot of increased attack range. [00:12:19] Speaker B: So he essentially has a ranged attack for that second one brings him up [00:12:22] Speaker A: to 400, which is shorter than a ranged champion but longer than any melee champion. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Basically. It's like thrushes. It's something weird. This also does on hit effects, which matters for things like Lich Bane. Because this is all AoE damage for that auto attack. [00:12:40] Speaker A: And important to note it applies the on hit effects to the primary target. So whoever you actually initiate the auto attack against it won't consume it on random minions around them that might be in front of them. [00:12:51] Speaker B: Yes. So also don't target the minion. If you're trying to hit someone. You can do that. You can use that to like forcibly hit somewhere. Because it's a big AOE hit. If you definitely are just shy of reaching someone, you're going to want to hit a minion like that. [00:13:05] Speaker A: I've used it to target minions for repositioning or mobility reasons. It is less damage when you do that. [00:13:13] Speaker B: This also because it's two procs of burst. The blink does slightly less than the dash does. It becomes an 80% AP ratio just doing both hits. His Ult base damage is really crap. 60% AP ratio. [00:13:32] Speaker A: Like I said, the the power of the Ult is in the execute not and the slow not really in the damage innately. That's really low damage for an exit for an ultimate. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Its base damage is really crap. 300 crap. But add 60% AP on that 60% [00:13:46] Speaker A: AP is crap for an ultimate AP ratio. [00:13:48] Speaker B: For. For. For an ultimate AP ratio. Yeah, that's crap. Now we're going to hit the big one because when you proc all three of your Q stacks the nail stacks, the max damage for all three of them is 207ap and 522base damage. [00:14:10] Speaker A: All three cues themselves hitting and then you procing the consumption of all three marks. [00:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So. Oh my God. Each one is 60% or 20. 20. 2020. So baseline 60% AP, you're getting 270 base damage. Yeah. But like I'm talking, just an AP ratio alone is 140% AP ratio on the nail pop. [00:14:34] Speaker A: Yep. [00:14:34] Speaker B: That is where your burst damage is entirely. This is the reason why so many people think he is bullshit is that this burst right here. [00:14:45] Speaker A: So that's a great way for us to transition into how. How to pilot lock. Because this burst is all tied into his Q and hitting multiple hits of his Q and then engaging lock's main play pattern is to fire his Q and if enough nails hit that he has the ability to kill someone to press W and blink in on them. You want to press W so that you can heal up whatever damage you take in the trade or after you kill them. And so you can gap close to get both parts of the blink on them. [00:15:16] Speaker B: This also means there is a correct and an incorrect way to use his Q and W combo. When you're next to someone. Because you will be in melee fights with someone and you're gonna want to hit your W because that's how you're surviving those fights. You don't. Even though you get an insane attack speed ratio, if you're using your Q, you cannot be attacking during that. [00:15:39] Speaker A: No. That's one thing I wanted to address because that is a misunderstanding that lots of people have. The damage on the Q is the same total damage. Whether you go Q hit auto, Q hit auto, Q hit auto or QQQ auto auto auto. That is the same total damage. It is identical in both cases, which is something that is not clear to most people. The only thing that matters for the Q for stacking it versus consuming the procs as they come is the slow is much larger. If you three stack and then go in, it slows for third 25% for the first two hits. But if you get all three hits, that third hit slows for 60% and slows for twice as long. [00:16:21] Speaker B: That doesn't make mathematical sense with the numbers they have listed. [00:16:26] Speaker A: The numbers they have listed I think [00:16:28] Speaker B: are wrong on the Wiki because yeah, [00:16:30] Speaker A: according to the wiki getting that extra [00:16:32] Speaker B: yeah according to the wiki alone it should be from one stack pop and one stack nail. 55% AP ratio. So three of those should be 170. [00:16:43] Speaker A: I agree. I think the wiki is wrong. [00:16:46] Speaker B: So there. This is now one of those things where it is either a bug on him or a misnomer here we should figure we are going to need to figure this out for like more things in the future because depending on what it is will actively change how he needs to play. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but my experience has been I couldn't really tell a difference from three Qs and then hit versus Q hit Q hit, Q hit. This is because I mostly have gotten to play him jungle. I've only gotten to pilot him mid once. [00:17:16] Speaker B: You know what, I will do a test when we're doing our questions and I'm going to do a quick ado on that but we'll get to that [00:17:22] Speaker A: later since I kind of brought us there. Where is he played? Well, he's best in mid. Just period. He's better as a mid laner than any other role. He is functional as a jungler. I'd put him solidly in like B tier. He's not bad, but he's not amazing [00:17:42] Speaker B: in comparison to the other AP Assassin Junglers. And there are a lot of them or just the Assassin Junglers. Actually all of those. He is noticeably a tier or two below them for one specific reason. All of the others actually have monster damage combos somewhere within them that give them actual like objective pressure that he doesn't have because he clears relatively well in comparison to a regular. [00:18:13] Speaker A: Yep, but his ability to secure an objective basically revolves around stacking a 3 stack of Q& popping it with E and smiting at once. It's awkward. As opposed to just snap go like most of the other equivalent role characters can do. He's much easier to steal from in [00:18:32] Speaker B: general because of that significantly. [00:18:35] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about lock in the mid lane primarily, since that is where he should be played mostly. What is his laning play pattern? My experience with him is you fish for your Qs. If all three hit and you're in an advantaged or even state, you can probably just press W and go in on them to win the trade. Especially once you're past the first couple levels and your Q cooldown is low enough that you'll have a second one on your way out to slow them as they chase you. If you don't kill them. If you Miss the Qs or they dodge them or anything like that. Well, cool. You clear the wave and wait for the next time to try. That's, I think, where a lot of the frustration around Lock is coming from is he just shoots this 950 range skill shot at you and if he doesn't hit it, he's not in any danger. [00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah. For a lot of. For a lot of the matchups that Lock is in, that's kind of how it goes. As I will talk about a little bit more, he has some pretty tough matchups in fact. So the. The two that I have noticed that I have been able to absolutely ream him with that I play specifically. I've started playing Mel again. I'm still annoyed with her, but I've started playing her again because of just how powerful she is. She kicks his ass. [00:19:57] Speaker A: It's almost like being able to press a button to deny his ability to ever all in is pretty strong. [00:20:02] Speaker B: It's. It's potent how strong she kicks his ass. Like she's. She's probably the strongest counter that I play. I don't think she's the strongest counter. [00:20:15] Speaker A: Statistically. She's not even the strongest counter that you play because Naafiri is higher up there. [00:20:20] Speaker B: Naafiri is the other one. I was going to say Naafiri just out fucking fights her by a lot. [00:20:27] Speaker A: Yep. And that's kind of the. The common theme of most of his counters is most of them can just out fight him. So like Irelia can beat him, Diana can beat him, Fizz can beat him, Galio can beat him. Other than Galio, because he's a tank, they basically are just stronger if he doesn't three stack. So they just use their tools to make sure he can't three stack and then they fight him and he loses. This champion is really squishy, by the way. His base stats are as squishy or squishier than the squishiest assassins. And then he deals damage to himself when he uses the W. Misusing W gets you killed on this champion. [00:21:11] Speaker B: No, it does work. Like I say it does have increased damage from the proc by like 500. Wow. [00:21:18] Speaker A: Huh? [00:21:19] Speaker B: I'm sorry, I just did a test on the. The training dummy there. [00:21:23] Speaker A: Okay. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Just doing qw gets about 4700 damage triple Q into using your W and then doing the auto attack is 5600. [00:21:37] Speaker A: So explain your test more. [00:21:40] Speaker B: If you just have him auto attack and do your Q at the same time, you will start auto attacking, then Q auto attack, then Q auto attack, then Q. You're consuming your stacks. [00:21:49] Speaker A: Yes. [00:21:50] Speaker B: If you forcibly let the three procs build up. I just had W going because that's do what you're going to do and then hit the burst damage is higher. [00:21:59] Speaker A: Well yeah, that was never. [00:22:02] Speaker B: That's including his auto attack plus passive damage from the extra couple hits he gets in there. [00:22:08] Speaker A: I don't believe you. [00:22:10] Speaker B: Now this is a weird one. This is Justin me plonking around on the test dummy and this is me putting of full AP ratio things in [00:22:20] Speaker A: there and okay, I found it on the wiki. There's a fucking arrow on the wiki that was not clear. If that had been more clear and I could have seen it, that would have been clear already. Yeah, it just has straight up different ratios and base damages for one stack, two stack, three stack. [00:22:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Okay, that makes more sense. [00:22:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So his. His three stack is insane. And that's why it has to be done that way if you want to properly utilize a pop that is a 5 to 600 damage difference at full AP. [00:22:50] Speaker A: Fair enough. [00:22:51] Speaker B: That's including his auto attacks which also have a passive ratio. [00:22:54] Speaker A: Today I learned also apparently on the wiki there's a frickin right arrow for this ability to tell you. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that is very weird. [00:23:03] Speaker A: Like lolwiki. I love you guys, you're great. But that UI element is bad because I was wondering where that AP ratio came from and I thought the wiki was just wrong. But no, it's just he has different values for 1 stack, 2 stack and 3 stack for the pop that are not linear scaling. [00:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's his. He is an unintuitive champion despite being so blatantly obvious in what he does. [00:23:29] Speaker A: Yep. So the next part of this is we've talked about how to use his Q and what his general trading pattern is. His W. For the love of God, recast it before you die. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Yes. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Second part of his W. Time out. [00:23:47] Speaker B: Always the funniest thing is how often people misuse his W. I've seen so many people press his W just to get into the fight to begin with. You're running someone down to try and do something that has cost every single one of those locks I've been doing the duel with. If they're trying to chase me down in the lane, they're going to use that and then try and fight me. Now they don't have their. Their heal back. I have murdered them because of that. [00:24:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the key is sometimes it is correct to do that. But the Times that it is correct to do that are when you're ahead and you're chasing down someone who cannot fight back. [00:24:25] Speaker B: Yes. Chase. Chase down is different than using it to get to a fight. [00:24:29] Speaker A: Yes. That being said, you should be using it to run out of base because it will be back up by the time you need it and it gets you out of the base faster and it heals itself. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Yeah. The. The with with how some of his stuff works. Also, the Q's cooldown is going while he's doing things. It has like a 5 second total cooldown. You have like a second and a half to cast all three. By the time you're done casting them, you are almost at your cooldown back by max level with max cooldown reduction. Well, not even max cooldown reduction. Just some good cooldown reduction with a [00:24:58] Speaker A: little bit of ability. Haste. Yeah. [00:25:01] Speaker B: Lock has a an immense amount of perceived power and he uses it very forcefully right up until he hits the wall. And then he has to play like every other assassin. And a lot of people aren't good at dealing with playing as an assassin in an off situation. So like the one that I didn't say as his counter is the person who I do not let play in mid lane. Syndra. Syndra can just poke him out from outside his range and then when he comes in, she insists on him and kills him. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Yep. Now, that being said, statistically, apparently it's an even ish lane. I think that has to do more with syndrome not being used to locks play patterns yet than anything else. [00:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Because if you play Syndra like you do in easier lanes where you just fish for stuns, you can't walk up until your stun is back off cooldown. [00:25:57] Speaker B: No. [00:26:01] Speaker A: So, yeah, so we talked about piloting him and the alt. Literally you just cast on people before they die. [00:26:10] Speaker B: I think we said it last time. I'm going to reiterate it this time. This has different things as what it says it's supposed to be. You throw your alt out. It avoids wind walls. The projectile that comes from that can be blocked by wind walls. Something says it does it backwards. This is what the wiki says it should be doing. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah, the wiki says the totem itself should be destroyed by wind walls. The nails that the totem fires cannot. That is what is supposed to happen. If it's not working that way, it probably will be changed to work that way whenever Riot gets around to fixing their champion. If they ever do. [00:26:44] Speaker B: Or they have set it backwards on their own preview. Because that is what the preview they explicitly tried to release said. [00:26:51] Speaker A: Yes, they were very clear about what the intended behavior is. But yeah, the ult basically you just cast it on anyone who's either cced by a teammate or has already used their dash because there is a delay if they will not get marked. [00:27:07] Speaker B: It is. It is quite slow. Yeah. [00:27:10] Speaker A: So like if you three hit your Q& they don't have a dash, you can literally just throw your Ult on them before you go in. It's fine. But otherwise you usually want some kind of setup. And the ULT does not need to deal damage for the execute to happen. The ULT just needs to mark them. As long as they are marked by the ult, you have five seconds. If they drop below the threshold, they die instantly. [00:27:33] Speaker B: So like we can talk about what his all in pattern is pretty self explanatory. There is depending on what you're doing with your ultimate, whether or not they have good movement, whether or not they have flash. You're either throwing your Ult as the first thing you do or you're jumping in and then throwing your alt. You should be. If you're doing the the first one, it's obvious you throw your alt first and then you do your cues. Then you do your E and W. Probably your W right before you eat. And then you just repeat your Q [00:28:03] Speaker A: and your E. So other things to note about his Ult you do have to pick it up afterwards. It's easy to forget. If you don't pick it up, you don't get stacks, you don't get the refund on your cooldown. [00:28:13] Speaker B: There is a little mark on your mini map when you play. If it has something to pick up. [00:28:18] Speaker A: Yes. If it didn't execute anyone, there's nothing to pick up. And then the other thing to note is it is weird with resurrection effects. Guardian angel and Zillion Ult will prevent the target champion from having their soul sealed away when they revive. The mark is gone. You just you triggered the execute on the the revive instead and that's that. Zahen will allow the totem to free his soul when the resurrection is triggered. I don't know if that's intended or not. That might be a bug. And then Anivia and Zack. If their revive passive is triggered by taking the initial damage of the Ult which we talked about is not very good damage. They will count however, otherwise if they if their resurrect was triggered by the execute, you put them in there. Right. Revived state with your execute instead of sealing their stall I definitely missed several souls on a Zach that I kept blowing up in the game I played earlier today because of this. [00:29:17] Speaker B: So this. This might be something that. Like knowing that you save your ultimate to try and get an execute on them because it bypasses their passive. [00:29:26] Speaker A: So it doesn't. It doesn't bypass their passive. [00:29:29] Speaker B: It instantly gives you the. The soul. [00:29:32] Speaker A: No. You just don't get a soul at all. Oh, you don't get a soul at all. It sucks. It was very frustrating. I had seven stacks in that game. I should have had 10. But three of my Zach kills triggered his passive instead of actually giving me a soul. Now it probably was still correct to ultim in at least two of those cases because I executed their tank and Jungler so that we could fight for Dragon. But it sucks that I didn't get a soul for that. So it's weird. [00:30:00] Speaker B: Yeah. We did forget a couple little side things about the alt while we're talking about it. It is a massive decayed slow. It's a 99% decay slow over two seconds. So this is insane to almost. It's a zillion style slow. And this matters for the stealth people. It reveals for a second. [00:30:21] Speaker A: Yep. The reveal is a big deal against champions with in like stealth. But not invisibility effects. Because I don't think it'll. I don't think it reveals. It doesn't grant true sight. [00:30:37] Speaker B: Let's check. [00:30:38] Speaker A: But it does reveal. [00:30:39] Speaker B: Yes. It's everything that isn't true. Stealth. [00:30:42] Speaker A: Yes. So like you can snipe a twitch with this and reveal him. [00:30:48] Speaker B: But you can't get a Kali snipe, [00:30:50] Speaker A: a Kha' Zix or a Kali. It's weird. It's. It's very weird. Lock is weird. You know what isn't weird though? How he builds. Lock's item path is super straightforward. You don't need any mana items. His mana costs are pretty low. You build a Lich Bane. Lich Bane is the one like always first item on him because of the way his kit works. It helps you front load damage. You always want Lich Bane. [00:31:15] Speaker B: It's. It's your first or second item. There is a case for one other item first and that's the. Do you have one of those other fighters that you can't survive the lane with? Sometimes it's right to get the Hextech Proto Belt. [00:31:28] Speaker A: I'll accept it. But generally Lich bane. [00:31:31] Speaker B: Lich bane 90% of the time. [00:31:32] Speaker A: Hexist is literally like. Unless you have a special case. Should be what you Build. If you are playing him outside of mid lane, you pretty much are always buying SORC boots. If you're playing him in mid lane, you're usually buying Zork boots. The game I mentioned that I that I built Gluttonous Graves instead for Immortal Path was because the enemy team had three tanks. There was just. There was not much for me to assassinate. So I was like, okay, I need some. Some sustain. And the extra healing on it is actually nutty on him. Because your gray health mechanic means you're basically always going to be in the bonus healing point when you activate it and get that extra 15% on your [00:32:13] Speaker B: W. And because of how his base damage is on the queue, you are doing a huge pop of damage. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Yep. Other than Lich Bane, he's pretty much always building at least 1 of storm surge or Shadow Flame, if not both. Both is pretty common as well. Because his AP ratios on his burst and his healing are so high. You pretty much always want a Death cap within. You don't want it to be your last item. [00:32:40] Speaker B: It needs to be third or fourth. [00:32:41] Speaker A: Yeah, matter of fact, Death Cap is the main reason you don't often build both Storm Surge and Shadowflame. [00:32:49] Speaker B: The reason to not build Rabadon's third or fourth would be explicitly you are not dying and you actively have a Magis. And then you can cut it by an item and push it back a little. You still want it, but you can feasibly grab something else first. [00:33:11] Speaker A: And then as far as what you round out the build with, I mean Zhonyas and Banshees are generically good on assassin type champions if they have Bruisers. High ap. [00:33:20] Speaker B: If they have Bruisers, you're getting avoid staff. [00:33:23] Speaker A: Yes. You really just want high AP items. He does. The Lich Bane is enough ability haste. Plus whatever you get in a runes, he doesn't need a ton of ability haste. Okay, so strengths and weaknesses. How do we feel about Lock he. If. [00:33:41] Speaker B: If he is allowed to do what he does. He has one of the silliest burst combos I have ever seen. If he's allowed to do it, which the more you play against him, the more you start to realize the patterns that allow you to dodge it. There's not necessarily the case where you will always be able to, but he has some very noticeable weaknesses as well. He is by design incredibly squishy when he's not using that W. Even if he like doesn't actively proc it if you actually put a heel cut in there, he's incredibly susceptible to the heal cut. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Yep. He is probably the most vulnerable to heal cut of any champion I've ever seen. Which is one wild since he is an assassin and there are multiple dedicated Heel Drain Tank champions. [00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Taking Ignite into him in Kill Verkill Lance is one of the most powerful things you can do against him. [00:34:39] Speaker A: Yep. As long as he's been in his W for at least one second and you cast Ignite, it will block 40% of his W healing. [00:34:48] Speaker B: And the two most important things you can do versus him. Try and dodge that first Q. And if you can't dodge that first Q, get as far away as you possibly can before he does his E proc. Because if he gets to hit you with that E, jump. [00:35:07] Speaker A: Yep. And because his Q does have a slow in it, if he hits the first one, it's harder to dodge subsequent ones. If you have a dash. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Cool. [00:35:15] Speaker A: You can dodge it with a dash, but it's. [00:35:17] Speaker B: It's not a perfect scaling. It's a like a little curve to it. It becomes a 60 slow at two stacks. [00:35:23] Speaker A: At three stacks. [00:35:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:25] Speaker A: It's only a 25% slow until he's already hit all three. [00:35:28] Speaker B: Yes. 25, 25 60. Yeah. [00:35:30] Speaker A: Also, the slow lasts for one second. Unless it's the third stack. The three stack slow lasts for two seconds. So it's really important you don't let him three stack, both for damage reasons and because he's CC you a lot harder with the slow. If you let him three stack, you're not getting away at that point. He's really like have to emphasize enough. He's really, really squishy. He is incentivized to cast his W when he is high health because he wants to go in and fight. But the W does percent current health damage. Yeah, it heals it at the end. But that means if you just eat like let's say a Veigar QR and you don't react fast enough, you just die. [00:36:11] Speaker B: Mm. [00:36:12] Speaker A: This is why it's important to remember you can recast your W while you are cc'd. You don't need to go, oh, Malzahar ulted me. I guess I'm dead. You can go, oh, Malzahar ulted me. I guess I'm back at full health. Fuck you, Malzahar. Yeah, now you'll probably still die afterwards. Cause you've been ulted by a Malzahar and presumably he has friends or voidlings hitting you while you're ulted. That's your best hope to survive. It is to. Oh, I Hit my gray health cap, press the button. [00:36:43] Speaker B: I. This is one of the abilities that, like, I don't know if there's a indicator when it shows when the grail cap is done or if you have to watch your health bar and see when there's difference between. Yeah. So there may be a cap that is larger than your actual total health. [00:36:59] Speaker A: Not really. Not insane amounts of ap. Maybe in mayhem. Maybe in mayhem. [00:37:04] Speaker B: It can definitely happen in mayhem. [00:37:06] Speaker A: Get a woo glitz and phenomenal evil or some ridiculous combination in Mayhem. You could probably get enough AP for that. [00:37:13] Speaker B: I said something wrong at the beginning. I'm gonna. I'm gonna take it back now. You have five seconds to recast each of those two ritual nails. The cast time for it is a quarter second. It has an internal half second cooldown between casts. So it's 1.5 seconds if you do all three shots. The final cooldown is six seconds. Yeah. The final cooldown of this ability is six seconds. That's insane. [00:37:42] Speaker A: It's. It's basically always up in late game with minimal ability, haste. Other weaknesses besides, you know, the typical CC him, blow him up. He's very squishy. If he misses his cues, his damage sucks. All of his meaningful damage is in his Q. [00:38:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:38:06] Speaker A: Which drives home how important it is. Use your dash, use your whatever to not get hit by all of his Qs. The other thing I want to point out is don't be baited by the fact that he has on hit damage on his auto attacks. You should not be building gnashers. You should not be building on hit of any kind. It's just some bonus damage on hit for flavor more than anything else. And to help him last hit better [00:38:30] Speaker B: in lane because of how his W and Q interaction work together and how often you're casting them. You may think you want attack speed. You really don't. You get more than enough attack speed to duel most people from your W and getting more attack speed but not using it because it costs you damage on your Q. Procs actively hurts your dps. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Yep. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Ignore his suggested items which tell you to get an ashers. [00:39:02] Speaker A: Yeah, seriously. Like maybe in the jungle. If you're playing jungle, it's not troll. I still wouldn't do it. But it's like less trolling in the jungle. I literally built an ASHERS and sold it in the game I played because I was like, wow, this sucks. And when I hit full build, I was like, cool. I'm replacing this with something with more AP and more value to me. I bought A Banshees instead. Because that was kind of game. [00:39:25] Speaker B: It was because Nashers no longer has 100 AP. It is not like an auto buy piece. If it was still 100 AP, it might actually have been worth it. Because it's that much AP, but it's not. [00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Nash is 90 or 80 now. [00:39:39] Speaker A: 80. Like, it's not terrible. This is. This is not a troll item. Dusk and dawn is troll. Do not build Dusk and dawn. [00:39:45] Speaker B: You cannot do Dusk and Dawn on him. No, no, no. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Like just straight up. Do not build Dusk and dot unlock, please, for the love of God. [00:39:52] Speaker B: Yeah, he is. He's the epitome of a champion who wants a Lich Bane. [00:39:56] Speaker A: Yep. [00:39:57] Speaker B: Also, for heaven's sake, don't use your Q to activate Lich Bane multiple times. That's not why you're doing it. You're doing it to enhance the singular burst. He is a unique champion who uses Lich Bane. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Yep. Now, that being said, sometimes it can be correct to use the Q for the Lich Bane procs on waves. [00:40:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Because you. You would overkill them if you three stack and then used Lich bait and proc. So you can do one auto. One auto. One auto. And you've killed all of the melees without ever putting yourself in any danger. Basically. [00:40:33] Speaker B: And it never costs increased mana. It's one cost whether or not you shoot one or three. [00:40:40] Speaker A: And getting less if you shoot one. [00:40:43] Speaker B: It is less if you do one or three. Yeah. And you're refunding cooldown. However, as we're saying that cooldown production means literally nothing by the end of that time, 6 second total cooldown. [00:40:54] Speaker A: It's like, oh, no, it's up in a second instead of in two seconds. Whatever. [00:41:01] Speaker B: Yeah. The Mana refund, like, it's also 70 across the board. It's not a cheap ability. But his other two are. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Yep. [00:41:12] Speaker B: His E only has 30 as its base. It has no cooldown reduction per level. [00:41:19] Speaker A: That was something you wanted to talk about last week, that we were like, let's hold off until we've played him. Skill order, obviously. Q max first. No discussion. Do you max W second or E second? [00:41:31] Speaker B: Honestly, I am now considering doing W second, knowing that the mana cost is still lower. The ratio and the amount of health you're getting back, the movement speed ratio, the attack speed ratio, and just the total amount of health you get back goes up by a sick amount per level. [00:41:52] Speaker A: I think W, the attack speed ratio and the movement speed after the decay do not scale per level. The movement speed before the decay and the gray health cap and the extra healing are all what scale? [00:42:06] Speaker B: Yes. His. His attack speed bonus is based on level. So. Eh. [00:42:11] Speaker A: And then the cooldown shrinks as you rank it up. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Yes. This is why like last week when we were talking with Pillow here, I disagreed. Because of the amount of burst damage you can get from Q done E. The amount that I have now played with and the amount that I have used my W. If you're doing two full rotations of Q into E on a target, they've been able to fight you. They're winning that fight. [00:42:36] Speaker A: Yep. [00:42:37] Speaker B: If you've been able to survive that fight. Because your W is now at a higher base. Yeah. I. I'm with Pillow now. I think W max second is correct. Yep. [00:42:47] Speaker A: So where it comes down to me is do you need the extra damage on your E to burst them? [00:42:53] Speaker B: This is also true. It may be correct not to. [00:42:56] Speaker A: It is a difference of 80 damage versus 200 damage base. So 120 damage difference. If that 120 damage will make the difference between killing them and them getting away, you should have maxed E. Otherwise I think the W is just a better max because that keeps the E cost really low. And that's the biggest reason to me. E costs 30 mana at rank one. Scaling up to 70 at rank five more than doubles. This is one of the worst mana scalings I've ever seen on an ability. [00:43:30] Speaker B: And frankly I don't. I don't know why its mana goes up like that other than to just keep his mana low. Because I think that's a balanced tool they have. It doesn't gain cooldown reduction. It barely gets AP it like it. It doesn't gain ratio as it goes up. The ratio is consistent the whole way across. Unlike some abilities, it's just 120 total base damage of difference for more than double the mana. [00:43:57] Speaker A: It's pretty terrible scaling. And that's why I think like unless you need that extra damage, the W is just better. Because even just looking at the base values, you get 1/2 of 20% more movement speed by ranking W 2nd and 160 base gray health cap and a shorter cooldown. [00:44:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Whereas the ratio. The mana ratio increase on that is 50 to 70. You'll notice 20 mana significantly less than you will the extra double and cost. [00:44:29] Speaker A: That being said, most people are maxing E second because damage. He is an assassin. [00:44:34] Speaker B: He is. [00:44:35] Speaker A: I'm not going to begrudge anyone for maxing E second just as long as you max Q first. You're correct. [00:44:41] Speaker B: I think if you are playing him as a jungler W, Max is always right. Because if you're doing jungle Lock, you will face the other jungler. Which means your W is going to be more important than the explosive damage on that E. Because almost all junglers have enough sustain to not die in one combo. [00:45:02] Speaker A: That is true. I do agree. If you are playing Jungle Lock, please Max W. Second. The mana cost part becomes irrelevant in the jungle, but the sustain part matters a lot more. Okay, any last thoughts about Locke before we move on to some listener questions? [00:45:17] Speaker B: For the love of God, free me from this red side curse so I can play him again. [00:45:24] Speaker A: I cannot do that, Mike. I'm sorry. [00:45:27] Speaker B: He is very fun. He's one of the more fun assassins I've played because you get he's. He's like actually to play him you can play him as a little bit of a poke hide the back corner. You have so much personal agency on him, absolute agency on him on how you want to go and when you want to go in where you want to play. Unless you're like getting hard countered in the lane, which there are a couple of them that are you, you've got some pretty, pretty sick agency. And even still his roams are obscene. [00:46:05] Speaker A: Yep. Once you have a little bit of ability haste, you can literally press W as you leave lane and it'll be back up when you arrive at Topperbot. Yeah, so you get there faster. He's obnoxious. Alright, let's do some listener questions. We actually talked about Locke a lot longer than I thought we would. So we might not get through all of these, but that's okay. Our first listener question tonight comes from Jokey Sierra who writes. Hi Wards. I'd like to know more about early versus mid versus late game. What are the characteristics of each phase? What does each role and or champion archetype generally looking to do in each phase? But how long does each phase last? Am I only looking at the clock to know when early game ends and mid game begins or are there certain events that happen on the map? [00:46:48] Speaker B: The map events are time based for the most part except for dragon spawns because those are based on when other things happen. [00:46:56] Speaker A: So in my opinion early game ends when the map as a whole has gotten their quests done and someone has taken a turret. Doesn't matter who. Some games no turret will get taken. The mid game does does eventually come around regardless just because of sheer time and power scaling progression. But for me generally that's where the line is is you are out of early game when a turret's gone down and everyone has their role quest done or almost everyone has their role quest [00:47:25] Speaker B: done in a similar manner. Like the role quest is a generally good indicator. I think for the most part early game is now over when the first person hits an item and a half. [00:47:37] Speaker A: Yep. Now I want to explain why. I think that's where the line is where early game ends. Early game is generally the laning phase. It's the 1v1 or 2v2 in the bot lane. You're in your lane against your direct lane opponent. That is the defining trait of what we talk about when we say early game. Mid and late game. You could be anywhere on the map. No matter what role you are, you could be anywhere on the map in a correct way to play. There's a lot more dynamic movement and decision making that happens in mid and late game than there is in early game. So that's why that's the delineating factors is your role quest kind of forces you to stay in whatever position you're assigned to in most cases. And when turrets go down, it frees you up to roam or to go push down the next turret or whatever the circumstance that makes sense in that moment is. [00:48:32] Speaker B: I have a weird delineation between ranks for when endgame pops up and this is very specific for iron, bronze, silver. Less so in silver but iron and bronze. Iron and bronze. Late game begins when someone hits three items unlike those three because they have such different gold values for people. People aren't farming very well. People are doing things. There are such a huge difference in the amount of money on the field for bronze, iron and some of silver. Let's call it silver 4 and 5 or 3 and 4 because there's no fives anymore. Everyone else. Late game starts with Baron or elder dragon. If. If there's an elder, it's late game. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Yeah. If elder dragon has spawned, you are already in the late game. You transitioned from mid to late game at some point before that. [00:49:32] Speaker B: It is. It is impossible for elder to have spawned before a Baron because four dragons would have had to be killed. [00:49:38] Speaker A: Yep. If. If you soul sweep. If you go 4 for 0 in dragons, then Sol may not be the indicator specifically of you being in late game. If it goes to more than four dragons, then Seoul is almost always going to be a sign that late game has begun. [00:49:52] Speaker B: Here's the thing. [00:49:53] Speaker A: Baron again, there are some exceptions. You can sneak a Baron at 20 minutes. It doesn't mean you're in late game. But generally Baron is also a sign of late game. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Yes. [00:50:03] Speaker A: So early game is defined as like the laning phase. The 1V1s and 2V2s and ganks. Late game is generally about sieges. [00:50:13] Speaker B: Yes. [00:50:13] Speaker A: Whichever team has an advantage is sieging the base of the opposing team. Most of the time in late game, outer turrets are gone on the losing team at least if not both. Inner turrets are gone on the losing team at least. If not both. You are sieging inhibitor turrets, taking inhibitors. That's the defining aspect of late game. It is mid and late game. Both are team fight heavy. But late game is about team fights at someone's base more than anything else. [00:50:45] Speaker B: Mid games are more defined by map objectives. Late games are more defined by specific base objectives. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Yes. [00:50:54] Speaker B: And then the occasional. Well, Barons respawned again, elders respawned again, etc. The difference between character archetypes with these things is way too large to go across them. Some characters are very much designed to be early game characters versus late game characters. It's really hard to go through the 170 champions. Yeah. [00:51:15] Speaker A: General gist of what makes a champion early game versus late game burst Champions are generally early in mid game. There's a couple exceptions like Veigar, Syndra. Syndra would be another example of that. Yes. DPS champions are generally mid and late game. That's going to be most AD carries most. And then champions like Rise and Cassiopeia. Those sorts of champions. Dr. Mundo would fit in that bucket. And why do we define them that way? Because that's where they're strongest. Early game champions generally have higher base damages but worse scaling. That's why their DPS falls off a cliff or their burst just gets outscaled by the defensive values that occur late game as everyone reaches high levels now. [00:52:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Specifically I'm going to talk AD carry more than anything else here. You will hear people talk about early game AD carries versus late game AD carries Because there are early game versus late game AD carries people who are much more powerful within the laning phase. Your MFs, your Kalistas, your Lucians. This does not mean they are not late game champions. [00:52:25] Speaker A: Yes. [00:52:25] Speaker B: Every AD carry is a late game champion. [00:52:28] Speaker A: Yes. I literally don't think there is a single exception. Every single AD carry is going to be one of the strongest people on the map. If they make it to full late game builds. [00:52:38] Speaker B: Yeah. We will frequently talk about Lucian specifically one culling. Just one ult from illusion can instakill tanks if it's hit the entire thing. [00:52:48] Speaker A: Take the whole thing. Yeah. It's it's brutal. Same thing like when we talk about like oh Jhin's bad into tanks. Yeah. If Jhin gets to six items he still three shots. Most tanks. [00:53:00] Speaker B: Mm. We saw that happen. We saw, we saw a full tank poppy die from half health from a, [00:53:10] Speaker A: from a four shot gin in MSI. [00:53:12] Speaker B: In MSI a week ago. [00:53:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:16] Speaker B: That's 2000 damage. [00:53:19] Speaker A: They weren't super tanky. [00:53:22] Speaker B: Through mitigation. Through mitigation. But that's. That's yeah. Pre mitigation. [00:53:27] Speaker A: Any other thoughts about early mid late game that we can answer for? Joe Key, Sierra Jokey. Sierra, write in more specific aspects of those that you want us to know about, please, because this is a very broad topic. We will love to talk more about it but we need some direction of what you want to know about it. [00:53:46] Speaker B: You have been one of the people giving us a question here. We could turn this into a full episode topic based on which one you want us to do. We will take that as from a question to a full topic. Give us what you want and we'll turn it into that. If it's, if it's still too broad, we're going to yank it down a little. [00:54:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Of course, if what you want is just to win games, just play Lucian in the top lane and it doesn't matter. You're an early game champion, a mid game champion and a late game champion rolled into one and their nexus just goes boom. [00:54:18] Speaker B: That's really sadly true. [00:54:20] Speaker A: Yes and no. Please don't actually play Lucian, Todd. Guys, I'm giving the disclaimer again because it's been long enough since the last time. It's a meme. It's a meme. We've been meming on this since 2016 or whatever. [00:54:30] Speaker B: 2017, 2016. [00:54:33] Speaker A: All right. This has been episode 538 of the Four Awards podcast. I've been Jack Soman from my Commanding Names. Have a great night. [00:54:40] Speaker B: Good night everybody. [00:54:43] Speaker A: 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.