The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 542: Four Wards Classic When?

[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 542 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Selman 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 B: Hi all. [00:00:50] Speaker A: And we're recording a little later so that we could have Pillow Pet with us tonight. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Hi, I'm here. [00:00:56] Speaker A: We're appreciative of you being here, guys. We are the Four Wards Podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. Come play classic with us. Come play classic ish mayhem with us. It's a good time. Link is in the episode description. We also stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV, Jacksoman. Mike can be found at Twitch TV, MikeofManyNames and Pillowpet can be found at Twitch TV, Pillowpet. And of course I want to give a shout out to our patrons who are supporting us at the shoutout tier on Patreon. They are Codex Ninja, Pillow Pets, Labana and Uncle Chrisco. Thank you guys so much. If you 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 will get you that same exclusive feed and we will shout you out at the top of every episode for as long as you maintain your subscription. And all of those benefits also apply to our general gaming podcast. Check out From 8 Bit to 4K on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're looking for a meaty pre show this week, the pre show that's coming out on Wednesday night, Thursday morning depending on your time zone for 8 bit to 4k was long. We had a lot of fun. It was almost a whole extra show this week. Last but not least, listeners, we need questions. None of y' all have written in. I expect that to change. Our email address is the four wards podcastmail.com link is in the episode description. Or if you're in the Discord, just drop a question in question submissions. It's a whole channel just for it so we can answer your questions on the show. Again, that is the 4 wards podcastmail.com seriously guys, we need questions. We're too stupid to fill a whole episode on our own without knowing what you guys want us to talk about. If you've ever listened to the pre show, you know how much we scrounge for topics sometimes, so help us out so you have fun stuff to listen to. Ask us your questions, or if you [00:03:00] Speaker B: want episode topics, give us those as well. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah, if you have a topic you just want to hear us discuss, it's not really a question. We'll take it. We may or may not do it. We've done a few that people have suggested and we've definitely skipped a few that people have suggested, but we'll consider it. But seriously, write in your questions. That being said, this week, thankfully, is a patch week, so we have something to discuss. Patch 2615 is here and we'll talk about the other half of this patch in a bit. But first let's talk about the main League of Legends portion. We're going to talk about some changes to Champions and items, but I want to kick it off with a systemic change that affects every single person who plays this game in Ranked. So a while back, Riot added a system called Aegis of Valor so that when you get auto filled, you get rewarded for playing seriously to the best of your ability. The idea was if you get a decent grade in the mastery system, you would remove the LP penalty if it was a loss or get double LP if you won. What Riot has found because apparently they have to learn this lesson over and over and over and over and over because we've had the same problem in every version of a mastery system they've ever made. That creates an incentive where if you get auto filled, your goal is more to play for KDA than to actually win the game. And they don't want that. So they're changing Aegis of Valor. Literally all it is is if it triggers because you were auto filled and you win the game, you get double lp. If you lose the game, you get penalized the same as any other game would. [00:04:36] Speaker B: That's, that's pretty much the smart incentive. [00:04:38] Speaker A: It, it is simple, it's easy to understand. Just oh, I got autofilled. If I win this, I'll get double lp. And it has no incentives to try to game the system or metagame anything. It's just play to win, win the game, get rewarded. [00:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah, having having a reward on on win as opposed to a non penalty on loss makes it so that people are trying to win more than they are trying not to lose. Which playing a KDA player is. You're. You're. You're playing to not lose, which doesn't win you games. [00:05:12] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:13] Speaker C: I've had double LP a couple times, Trigger. It's been really nice. I. I had one during a promo game, so I don't know if it actually double LP'd or not, but it was nice. [00:05:24] Speaker A: I don't think it double LPs during promotion games because there's no. Well, there is LP behind the scenes, but unless you like, go. [00:05:32] Speaker C: I'm sorry, not promotion. Placement. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Ah, placement. I don't know. Not a clue. [00:05:38] Speaker C: Because you already get a decent amount decent chunk for when you win. I don't know. I didn't pay attention. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Speaking of a decent chunk, Mike, they took a decent chunk out of our least favorite new champion. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna start with Lock. And this is starting to finally get Lock into a place where he is playable against unless you are playing specific things. So like Locke has, and they've said it straight up here, he has too much safety within his power. You go in and you just don't die, even when you should. And they've realized, you know, a lot of people are starting to second max W so that you can build up that Soul ignition to just not die. So they've decided, you know what, we're tuning down its AP ratio because it needs to be tuned down 20 nerf is always a good Nerf. And they're reducing the movement speed to no longer have a base scale. It's just going to be 40 plus 2%, 100 AP. [00:06:44] Speaker A: Yep. It no longer scales with level. It's rank, rather. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it is a good change on this ability specifically because giving him increased movement speed gave him a ton of reset power. Because the faster he can get into places, the faster he can function on his resets, the more he can blow shit up. So double nerf on this. It's good nerf all around. He has a base health nerf, which is also just good. He should be squishy and then he has more nerfs to his Q. And these are base damage nerfs. They're not his explosive pop nerfs, which I think all of us agree is where it needs to be. But yep, any Nerf to the Q is a Nerf to the Q and it's a good Nerf. The base damage is going down at all ranks about 10 for one nail hit. The base damage for three nail hits reasonably is going down 30. So straight up, each nail hit just drops it 10 and 30 damage at level one is astoundingly high. [00:07:49] Speaker A: Yep. [00:07:50] Speaker B: So base damage nerfs are a good way to hit this. I think all of us still believe it. It. The big thing that they need to deal with is to tone down the percent of his pop. [00:08:02] Speaker A: It needs a lower. He needs more damage tied into his dash and the nail hits themselves. And less damage tied into popping three stacks on someone. Yeah, I think because the three stack pop is disgusting. It's all one hit. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's disgusting. [00:08:19] Speaker A: Big single hits are really hard to react to or play around if they [00:08:24] Speaker B: want to make it feel like it is a more fair ability. Take 50% of the AP out of that pop on the second half, which [00:08:33] Speaker A: to be clear, would still leave it at 150% AP ratio, which is ludicrously high. That's higher than most ULTs. [00:08:38] Speaker B: Take 50% out of that and add it into a scaling for the three nails on the second half. [00:08:44] Speaker A: Adding into the actual damage of the ULT cast itself. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Actually, yes. His ULT cast does nothing. [00:08:50] Speaker A: It does so little damage. [00:08:52] Speaker B: Realistically, you. You throw that ultimate into a group of people just so that you can maybe get some. Some free percent executes as people try and run away from you. [00:09:01] Speaker A: It's a slow and an execute trigger. It happens to deal a little bit of damage. [00:09:06] Speaker B: I think it's like max. It's 200. It's really low. [00:09:11] Speaker A: 300 plus 60% AP. If they just took 50% off of the Q pop and put 50% on the ult. Made the ult 110% AP. Leave it low base damage. I think he'd be a much healthier champion. [00:09:25] Speaker B: I agree. [00:09:25] Speaker A: And he'd be a better team fighter because that thing's aoe. His Q pop isn't sort of. You're. No. You're never going to hit three nails on multiple people. [00:09:33] Speaker B: If you. If you do, they deserve it. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Yes. If you manage to three nail multiple people and pop them all, you deserve to win that fight. Like, much as I hate lock. No, that's an actual like a straight up outplay. You deserve to be rewarded for an outplay like that. [00:09:49] Speaker C: You know, there's a lot of bullcrap champions out there that deserve a rework. I have a feeling he's going to get that treatment and probably work his way into some kind of rework scenario quickly. [00:10:03] Speaker A: The biggest thing they need to do is just make his w not able to be recast to heal himself. While he is hard cc, I think, [00:10:09] Speaker B: I think all of us, all of us agree. I don't think he needs a rework. He needs a retool. They need to do one or two small changes and he's suddenly a healthier, a healthy assassin in quotation marks. Because all assassins are inherently kind of unhealthy. [00:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah, but that would put him more in the ballpark of like other committal assassins like Talon and Echo. [00:10:30] Speaker C: That's who I always think of. Like he needs to be played much like Echo. Like I feel like he needs to be adjusted to just almost be identical to Echo with just a different play style. His dash is. It's a great, you know, it's a great designed ability. It's fun to use how it's managed. The nails make sense. Stacking slow and damage his R. Big old AOE slow. It's a big utility for a team fight. I think it's a 99% slow. [00:11:02] Speaker B: It's a really pace. [00:11:03] Speaker A: But yes. [00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah. But yeah, it's maybe way of healthily changing his W. One of the most broken powers is upgraded Rengar's W. The massive heal plus CC break. [00:11:16] Speaker A: Yep. [00:11:17] Speaker B: If you make it so that your W either heals you or breaks CC or not both, that is suddenly a better position. Because just being able to need him [00:11:28] Speaker A: to be able to break cc, he should be vulnerable to cc. [00:11:31] Speaker B: He should be vulnerable. But the choice of I'm either going to take a fuck ton of damage and then I get to heal it or I'm going to get out of here is a much better decision than like a Rengar Sage or even just wanting to stay as it is. [00:11:44] Speaker C: Are you wanting it just to be like eating an orange? Is that what you mean? Just like pop it. [00:11:49] Speaker B: So. So eating an orange. Eating an orange still heals. And that's the thing. If it is a broken half of if there is CC no heal all [00:11:56] Speaker A: of the great health Gunblade and then he doesn't care anymore. [00:12:01] Speaker C: I agree with Jax on the like. Just don't let it be recastable. [00:12:06] Speaker A: It should not be recastable while hard cc'd and it should not auto recast when it times out. If you don't recast it, you should not get the gray health. [00:12:15] Speaker B: No other greyhealth ability does that. [00:12:17] Speaker A: As far as I'm aware, all of them do that. If you don't cast Tahm Kench's shield in time, you're just dead. [00:12:23] Speaker B: Yes. So. [00:12:24] Speaker A: So if you don't Mundo's W on a champion, you don't get health back. [00:12:29] Speaker B: Yes. That is what I meant. None of them function like his. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:33] Speaker B: Which is just. [00:12:34] Speaker A: That's the problem. So I would make it so if you don't recast it because you're cc'd or you're a dumbass and don't press the button, you don't get the health back. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Which actually is a penalty to casting solo ignition because currently it. It doesn't hurt. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:49] Speaker C: Yeah. I say they definitely need to take out like the self harm damage from casting. It shouldn't be healed back at all. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Or they can just straight up make it so that if they do that, [00:12:58] Speaker A: it doesn't need to self harm. [00:13:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:00] Speaker A: The self harm is there, by the way, to disincentivize him for building Bruiser or Tank. That's why it's there. Because it scales with his max health. Anyway, I think that's more than enough. About Locke Pillow. Pick an item you want to talk about. You've got two items on your list. [00:13:16] Speaker C: So I'm going to just talk about Bastion Breaker because I'm sure some of you guys were like, what is that item? Haven't even heard of it. [00:13:23] Speaker A: And you're not a apparently the least built lethality item. And it is not close. [00:13:29] Speaker C: Now, I do remember building this item quite a bit when it came out because the premise of it is really cool. So what Bastion Breaker does is when you get a takedown, you do X amount of true damage to a structure or an epic monster. And what they've done is they reduce the cost by 200 gold. It's now 3,000 gold to build Bastion Breaker. And now the charge damage. It was 30 plus 150% lethality in true damage. And now it's 50 plus 150% lethality true damage. You're just bumping up that base value of the charge. It's a very strong item. The. The. The charge damage does thousands of damage to like there's a separate. I think there's a separate important to [00:14:18] Speaker A: be clear charge is the ability that it does when you proc it on a champion. Sabotage is when you get a takedown and you get to destroy an objective. [00:14:28] Speaker C: Yes. So the. The shar. The. The charge is. Yeah. It's champion specific. The strength in this item comes from the utility that it offers your team where you can quickly take down towers or epic monsters. If you have the charge built up. It does time out eventually. But it is a pretty generous timer. From a takedown. You get plenty of time to decide what you're Doing with it. It's a very strong item. I don't play a lot of champions that build into it. I always try to think of one like sometimes I can put renekton in it. [00:15:04] Speaker A: But I really, really like this item on Kha'. Zix. I literally go, if I'm not building a hubris, I go umbral glaive into Bastion Breaker with this buff. They both do the same amount of proc damage onto a champion and it just helps you front load so much damage onto people. And then the fact that it also helps with taking objectives after a team fight is just the icing on the cake for someone like Kha'. Zix. [00:15:30] Speaker C: It makes a bear and very quick work. [00:15:32] Speaker A: Alright. Speaking of making quick work of things, Mordekaiser was apparently op after Riot was like, oh, he's too weak. Let's buff him. So they've reverted the change from last patch where they buffed his ultimate to steal more stats, which is a good thing. He did not need that buff, but he does need a buff in general. Apparently there was a bug with his ultimate where if someone had abnormally increased max hp, such as if they were lulu ulted, his ultimate was doing extra damage to them that's been fixed, which shouldn't matter most of the time. And then to compensate, they're reducing the cooldown on his e by 2 seconds at all ranks. That's his pull. That's huge. This is his second max. That max rank. It's now an eight second base cooldown. And Mordekaiser really wants to build a little bit of ability haste. He almost always is building a Rift maker. I like to build Dusk and Dawn on him. I know it's not the most popular item on him, but I think it's really underrated. You can easily get that below a five second cooldown and then you can just pull people every five seconds. You get two of them inside your ult with that change. [00:16:41] Speaker B: This gives passive magic penetration, right? [00:16:44] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Yeah. That's why it's the second max. He is so strong on him being able to max at second. [00:16:50] Speaker A: That's why it's a second max is because of the percent pen. The cooldown is just icing on the cake. [00:16:55] Speaker C: I just remember talking about when. When we talked about his ultimate buff and we specifically said, hey, that 3% is a lot and it's very quickly we found that we were right on that. It was a lot of help on Mordekaiser. I. I ended up just banning him because I hated seeing him. He was in the jungle. He was everywhere. [00:17:18] Speaker A: I like playing him in the jungle still. Which also makes you less reliant on Rylai's cause. Smite is a slow. So yeah, that's what they changed with Mordekaiser. I think he's really strong still. But I'm also really glad they reverted the R buff because he was just. You were able to duel people who were way ahead of you because you stole so many stats. And to a degree that's how he's supposed to work. But it was way too pronounced. [00:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah. When Mordekaiser is too strong it's a problem. [00:17:46] Speaker A: There's no way out of his Ult anymore. So he can't be allowed to be too overwhelmingly strong base stat wise during the ult. [00:17:54] Speaker B: And there's not a lot of people who have the power to easily. 1v1 Mordekaiser. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty much entirely auto attacking champs like Master Yi in the late game who can do it. Or someone like Volibear who just has excessive single target healing. Anyway. All right. Mike. The big one. Talk to us about the Void Queen. [00:18:16] Speaker B: This is the largest change in the patch outside of the other thing we're going to talk about after we're done with our changes to the patch. [00:18:24] Speaker A: Yes. [00:18:25] Speaker B: Bel'veth got essentially a complete rework without changing any of her abilities. [00:18:31] Speaker A: It's a full like stat rework. [00:18:33] Speaker B: She has. She has been entirely retooled. Every single ounce of this champion is changed where every single ability still is exactly the same ability. So every ounce of her base stats has been changed. I should actually point out what their goal is. And this is a great goal for her because of what she is look like she is designed to be. They have gone and decided they want. You know what? Bel'veth is way too powerful. As an early game champion she had way too much dueling potential. In this early game we understand that she is one of those infinitely stacking champions. She should be a late game monster, not an early game bruiser. We're going to give her the Kayle treatment. You are going to be weak early game and you are going to be strong if you max yourself. So in order to do this they have completely adjusted basically everything. Base stats across the board are pretty much nerfed except for basic attack damage modifier. She now does full auto attack damage. [00:19:41] Speaker A: Thank it was so annoying how little auto attack damage she did so early. [00:19:46] Speaker B: That is yeah pretty much the only positive change. She has a little bit of armor growth but and health growth like Some. Some growth stats across the board. Everything else stats across the board changed. And to do this, they've also retooled her attack animation because everything is being changed with her second, her passive. Her passive used to be like this. This two stack up and down that you got like potentially eight stacks total. And then each time you'd attack two attacks. You do some things for extra attack speed. Nah, screw that shit. Now it's just every time you cast a spell for three seconds you have 20% attack speed. And the second half of her passive, which was based on stacks you have. You have extra attack speed. They're just cleaning it up to make it the attack speed per stack. I think this is a scaling. Like based on your level. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Yes. [00:20:36] Speaker B: So it's basically. [00:20:37] Speaker A: It starts out worse and gets better as the game goes on than it used to be. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Which means she is getting significantly more attack speed, but she starts with much less. [00:20:48] Speaker A: And she has a much lower attack speed ratio. So you need a fair amount of stacks before you're actually attacking faster than Old Bel'veth. [00:20:56] Speaker B: Yes. However, you will be attacking faster than [00:21:00] Speaker A: Old Bel'veth if the game goes long enough. [00:21:02] Speaker B: Second portion. Now we enter a queue. There is a speed for the movement on how Void Surge works. It used to scale with the levels on it. Now it's just base 850. You will always move at 850 speed. Every time you Q. The time between casts, the amount of time you have before you can cast it again now scales with its rank. So it's going from just one second to four seconds to one second. That is a huge jungle Nerf. Massive to her. It means she can't just sit there Q Q Q Q and then spend all the stacks to compensate straight up. The monster damage modifier is now like dead center to where it used to be. It doesn't scale anymore. It no longer has a Minion damage modifier, which means you can theoretically play her in lane. Don't. She's so weak and she scales so terribly when not killing the jungle. So just because she no longer has a minion modifier doesn't mean she's a Minion Lane champion. They buffed the base damage now that you no longer have the ability to speedily bounce between them. So now it actually has a base damage at level one and scaling up to the same rank but a little bit higher attack damage ratio. And then there is an attack speed to ability haste, like conversion. Like how quickly she's able to use. This is based on her attack speed. That got slightly nerfed because she now has better potential scaling. Her W. Her W is the tail slam and the knockup. That damage got. Big base damage buff. Like big base damage buff. 10 at first rank to like. What is that? 90 at max. They took away your bonus ad ratio, but they upped your ability power ratio. This has 150% ability power ratio. This may key into to where her new builds are going. The slow duration no longer scales. It's just two seconds and a 30% slow. And the knockup duration now does scale. It starts out slightly weaker and slightly stronger in a second. Used to just be a static quarter second. Her E. Her E is A. You sit there and you channel and do damage. The damage per strike. Base damage has now been buffed. The ratios have now been buffed. But in compensation it no longer does anywhere near as much damage based on your missing health. It used to do up to four times base damage. Now it just caps at double. But you have a stronger base damage to compensate. The number of strikes now has a little bit less scalings. It takes more attack speed to get more strikes. Now compensation. The damage reduction starts lower, ends higher. The inbuilt lifesteal of this item starts the same where it was. Now ends double where it was. You have inherent 40% lifesteal on this ability. If you cap it. However, the lifesteal scaling from items removed. So if you had lifesteal items, it no longer benefits this. The cooldown starts higher, ends lower, and the monster damage modifier is up 50%. They may be wanting you to use this as your main monster killer now as opposed to Q. Don't do that. I haven't tested it yet, but from the way things are looking, you may want to level up Q simply because the time between casts is huge. However, the bonus damage you get from your E might actually be where you really want to go. And you're only going to use one E anyways. And the other massive pile of buff changes here comes with her ult, which has passive and active portions. So Bel'veth used to gain on hit applications. Like she would just gain passive true damage once she ulted. It used to be every other attack. Now it's every attack. The base true damage is just lower. It used to be like your. Your max base is now your old beginning and they cut the ratio. The like bonus attack damage ratio down to 3%. But you no longer lose passive stacks when swapping targets. You gain less monster stacks from epic monsters. You are no longer required to do an application of either E or Q to get stacks going. This is all very complicated because her alt is very weird. And now we go into the active. When you. When you click a target after you've killed them, your explosion damage got no base damage changes. A weaker missing health, but a much higher another 50% bonus ability power. If you chain explosions because of kills, it's 150% ability power plus 150 every time. This can be incredibly high if you have a little bit of AP in there. A Nashor's tooth, maybe. She also has the heal for the bonus health. That's getting another straight up massive base buff. Not at first level, but at max rank it's doubled and the bonus ad ratio up and the ability power ratios up. So you're healing significantly more when you Ult. When you. When you steal one of the corals. [00:26:39] Speaker A: That's the part of this whole thing I'm most excited about, honestly. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's a huge heal, a huge burst explosion, and now we have to talk about the form itself. The form's attack range increase is now starting smaller. Becomes the same at mid. And at max rank, you now have a bigger attack range. Your total attack speed starts smaller, ends higher. Your physical size will now actively increase up to double once you you use it, which is not actually like you're not doubling your size. You've got a like little 10% side boost. Now it's becoming a 20% at max rank. This is the weird worded thing in here because it's not intuitively like written down. Bel'veth has an unempowered and an empowered state based on whether or not she stole Baron or Rift Herald. The duration of those is now based on her rank and stacks. And this is where it gets weird because it has 4590 infinite at 04080 stacks. So if I'm not mistaken, you need 40 stacks to get the 90 second empowered buff. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:28:00] Speaker B: And 80 stacks. Once you hit max rank infinite duration. [00:28:05] Speaker A: I don't believe it cares about the rank of the Ult. If you hit 80 stacks really fast, somehow I believe it just goes infinite. [00:28:10] Speaker B: Yeah. This is why it's weirdly written. It's very weirdly written down. [00:28:14] Speaker A: And I do assume that if you die, you have to get a takedown on something to reset getting the ultimate again. You don't just get to be permanent Ult form for the rest of the game. It's not like Kayle, where you've hit the scaling threshold and now you're just Permanently stronger. You're just stronger until you die. [00:28:32] Speaker B: We're assuming that none of us have gotten to play it because we'll discuss later. But also the post cast lockout the like. I believe this is the delay after [00:28:43] Speaker A: you cast it before you can do [00:28:44] Speaker B: anything again is now a quarter second and that's from when you grab a coral. So that's pretty massive. The one downside of this new stuff is she lost her out of combat move speed. [00:28:58] Speaker A: That's fine. [00:28:58] Speaker B: This was a 10 minute discussion on what changed. No one said anything about it. It's so much information to say that she plays her abilities still work the exact same whereas a lot of the minutia about them is incredibly different and who she is identity wise has changed while she plays exactly the same. [00:29:25] Speaker A: I'm just excited about the possibility of having a pop off Bel'veth game, getting the enhanced void coral from Baron and just spawning extra minions in lanes for the rest of the game until you die. [00:29:36] Speaker B: That is going to be incredible. The thing that makes me interested is now that she has such a good AP ratio. Gunsau's Terminus, Nashor's. [00:29:47] Speaker A: I don't think she builds Nashor's but she's happy about the AP because Guinsoo's. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah, between Goonsos and Terminus she's. She's one of the best people to use. [00:29:55] Speaker A: Terminus doesn't have ap. [00:29:57] Speaker B: It scales magic damage as well is what I'm thinking. You're right. You're right. It's. It's the double thing. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Yeah. It has penetration for both physical and magic damage, but it only has AD attack speed and on hit damage on it. Yes, but she's happy about the AP from Baron, Buffin from Rageblade. [00:30:17] Speaker B: I think. I think there is a world in which you go nothing but on hit and you splash Nashers in there to get more on hit. [00:30:26] Speaker A: Nah, I think she still wants to go like crack in Rageblade, Terminus and then Tank for the last two. [00:30:32] Speaker B: I think she also is going to get Bork. She's going to be such a good fighter. [00:30:37] Speaker A: Maybe. [00:30:38] Speaker B: And considering she essentially has independent attack speed, you can't build too much. [00:30:42] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Maybe Bork instead of Kraken Slayer when the enemy team is tankier. [00:30:46] Speaker B: Yeah. She make note she has a slightly better scaling on on hit effects than she did before. Which was one of the biggest problems she had is that essentially her damage was just straight up nerfed. So she didn't do full on hit or full damage because she triggered them so often. Yeah. They've increased the ability's effects, especially in her E which can hit like 30, 40 times depending on stacks. [00:31:17] Speaker A: And she is still allowed to exceed the attack speed cap. [00:31:20] Speaker B: She can get what, 99% attacks or [00:31:22] Speaker A: 999.9999 attacks per second is her actual technical limit. You'll never achieve that even in like it literally takes hours in a custom game to achieve. [00:31:34] Speaker B: You need thousands of coral for that. So it's not happening. [00:31:39] Speaker A: Which means it's effectively unlimited in real world situations. [00:31:42] Speaker B: Yes. Which means she is the only champion in the game where any if. If you are winning so hard you don't need tank stats. You can build nothing but attack speed items and not feel terrible on hit items. Yeah. [00:31:56] Speaker A: Don't build nothing but attack speed. Please for the love of God, don't build like Phantom Dancer on her. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Just bad. [00:32:02] Speaker B: We should clarify attack speed with on hit effects. [00:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah. You'll get more than enough attack speed. You're building the on hit items for their on hit procs of the attack speed they have on them is incidental. [00:32:12] Speaker B: Bring a wit's end in there. [00:32:14] Speaker A: That's more than enough. About Bel'veth Pillow, we briefly touched on Terminus. You want to talk about what changed with Terminus? [00:32:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I was gonna say speaking of Terminus got a pretty massive change. So it was just 30 magic damage on hit and now it's 30 magic damage on hit plus 10% of your bonus attack damage plus 10% of your ability power. This is a huge scaling item now and not just a mid game power spike. This is going to be a late game item with huge scaling numbers. [00:32:51] Speaker A: This is a massive, massive buff for Gnashers building auto attacking champions like K Kayle and Kaisa. [00:33:02] Speaker B: At 100 AP, you're giving it 30%, 33% more damage. [00:33:08] Speaker A: Not just that, but reminder. Nashor's only has a 15% AP ratio. Terminus has a 10% AP ratio while giving you. It's your shred item. [00:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:33:18] Speaker A: It's a little shred and it's a defensive item. It's so good. [00:33:23] Speaker C: I mean we didn't talk about her, but we just brought her up. Kaisa got a buff also with her caustic wounds. So just a small buff to Kaisa plus this. I think she's gonna definitely end up in a really good spot. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Kaisa very much is now like you should be going like The Kraken Rageblade Gnashers 3 item combo and then getting a Terminus 4th. Like just plain and simple. I. I think that is Just the correct build on Kaiser now with this change. [00:33:52] Speaker B: If you're someone who uses Gunblade, who uses the. The double stack AP&AD, Kael is. Is over the moon with this stuff. [00:34:00] Speaker C: Yup. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Maybe consider building Terminus on Azir. As weird as that would be, it [00:34:06] Speaker B: might be a thing. [00:34:07] Speaker A: I don't know if it's good. I'm not saying like you should do that. Go jump into ranked with it. But like if you play Azir, try it out. Let me know what you think. Maybe try it in a norm. [00:34:16] Speaker C: There's. There's going to be a lot of champions that end up building this. I just. I just feel it's going to end up being in a lot of champions kits now. And I mean, I even hate to say it, but I feel like it might even poke its way into Mordekaiser's build at some point. [00:34:32] Speaker B: You need to be who actively attacks a lot and has AP and AD ratios and does magic and physical damage. Because otherwise. [00:34:43] Speaker A: That's why I think like Kaisa is the perfect champion for this. [00:34:46] Speaker B: Otherwise people just don't benefit from it properly because they're only utilizing half of it. So like Kaisa and and Kayle are the premier people because Kaisa is auto attacking all the time. So she's benefiting from the auto attack ad because she still does get a meaningful amount of AD from her items. And Kayle is building hybrid stuff so she wants ap, she wants AD because they both benefit into her. She's also auto attacking a bunch and she does meaningfully split physical magic damage. Jax may want this as a tank item which is like this may be one weird attack speed item into Jax because he does meaningful physical and magic damage. [00:35:29] Speaker A: Maybe. [00:35:29] Speaker B: I actually think this might be a yone item and that annoys me. He doesn't benefit from the magic portion as much, but because he does magic damage so often, allowing him to have magic shred in there. Use this as his one attack speed item. [00:35:48] Speaker A: It's. It's not terrible. The problem is he wants to build his one attack speed item early, which is why it's usually Bork. [00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:55] Speaker A: All right. [00:35:55] Speaker C: We'll have to wait and see. [00:35:57] Speaker A: I've got one more. It's a quick one. Maokai got buffed. They've increased the monster damage on his Q by 10 at all ranks and increased the AP ratio on his Q to 50%. They specifically say he's underperforming in both top and jungle and they're trying to buff up jungle. Maokai, I got news for you. Riot. The reason he's underperforming is people are building him wrong. [00:36:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we've talked about the way to build him. [00:36:27] Speaker A: Stop building Liandry's first on Maokai, Build Imperial Mandate into tank. Because Imperial Mandate gives you such ridiculously low cooldowns on your CC and makes your whole team do more damage to the person you're CCing that you're is the person your team is trying to kill. It is the perfect item on Maokai. It is incredible. And because your Q is an immobilizing effect and has a monster damage multiplier, it also is the highest clear speed increase you can get and it costs 600 gold less than Liandry's Torment. So you come online sooner. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Because so many of his abilities are CC abilities and he scales with how many abilities are cast around him for his healing. [00:37:12] Speaker A: Yep. [00:37:12] Speaker B: He becomes significantly tankier with Imperial Mandate than he does with Liandry's late game. [00:37:20] Speaker A: He's not as tanky in the early to mid game because Imperial Mandate doesn't have hp, but once you're scaled up, it's just so much better. And I think his win rate is literally suppressed by people building him. Wrong. I looked. Some people are building Imperial Mandate second on him in the jungle. Basically no one is building it first in the jungle. The one person who is goes Imperial Mandate Bandle Pipes, which I think is a great build. Those are both cheap items. They make you tanky and CC quickly. They have a lot of ability. Haste Bandle Pipes buffs up your team. Imperial Mandate buffs up your team. Perfect for a champion like Maokai. [00:37:56] Speaker B: Yeah. The reason that people aren't doing that, as much as we can tell individual agency, people want to be the one who's carrying a team and they're not considering. Well, if I can do more for everyone, I will more likely win the game for everyone. [00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, as I hinted to earlier, we don't have any questions this week, guys. So write in to theforwardspodcastmail.com with your questions or drop them in the question Submission channel on the Discord, please. Seriously, we need questions. But since we have no questions, we got one more thing to talk about. That was in this patch. League Classic has arrived. We've all gotten to play it a bit. We all have our opinions on it. So let's talk about League Classic and then we'll talk about Classic Ish Mayhem, which is kind of a sort of League Classic sort of Aram Mayhem mishmash. So let's talk about Regular Classic First Summoner's Rift kind of sorta how you remember it from 2013ish. What is it? First of all, you guys want to describe what League Classic actually is? [00:38:59] Speaker B: League Classic is an amalgamation of pretty much almost all of the old things you can think of. If it happened between beta and the end of season three. Something about there is within League Classic they've taken. This is not a patch in time they've not done. This is where we're cutting things off. This is where everything is going to be. No, there will be bits and pieces from across league in this entire patch range with a couple of modern conveniences because there's still been 17 years of development and a couple of things have just made everything better for everyone. And so those have been put in the game to help smooth things over, especially for people who are playing current league and go to Classic and go, what the fuck is this? So the best way to describe it is a little bit of old, actually a lot of bit of old with a little bit of new sprinkled in. They have a very small champion roster in comparison. It's I think grand total of 60 right now. Or is it 40? [00:40:09] Speaker A: 60. [00:40:09] Speaker B: 60. They have all of the original beta champions in there and champions from iconic champions that are old from across that three year gap. So despite the fact that he was the first champion released, Udyr is not there. However, Wukong and Lee Sin are. Even though they were released year two because they have such an iconic old memory to them. A lot of the champions that you know and love are completely different. Yeah, Sion plays literally nothing like he does now. Every ounce of that champion is different. However, champions like well Annie are pretty much the same. There's one change here or there brand pretty much the same. Lulu pretty much the same. But then there's those like Midway grounds where one or two abilities are a little bit different, but most of them is. It's kind of familiar. So like old Kael, it's kind of familiar. Nunu. Very different. Twisted Fate kind of familiar, but also very different. [00:41:25] Speaker A: Ezreal Almost the same except for his W. Yeah. So like all the numbers are different but like fundamentally he feels the same to play except for his W which is now a skill shot that heals and attack speed, steroids or slows instead of a like mark damage amp thing like it is in modern league. [00:41:44] Speaker B: Garen. [00:41:44] Speaker C: Garen is only. [00:41:46] Speaker B: His W is different. [00:41:47] Speaker C: Well his R. His R does magic damage now instead of true damage. [00:41:51] Speaker B: That's true. It is still an execute. There are Only two cooldown champions in this game right now in Garen and Katarina. [00:41:58] Speaker A: Yep. [00:41:59] Speaker B: There are none of the energy champions in the game yet. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Lee Sin Lee said. Yeah, I think the list to be added but is not in yet. And the old version of Akali very different. We had klepto. [00:42:13] Speaker B: I love old Akali and I really like this old Katarina. They feel familiar whilst also definitely being different. I cannot wait to play them. The biggest change, the biggest change in this game from current to this old classic. If you play jungle you are going to get your ass handed to you. There have been a million and a half quality of life enhancements into jungle that are not there. [00:42:41] Speaker A: Yup. [00:42:42] Speaker B: The jungle can easily kill you level one and two easily. [00:42:47] Speaker A: Even if you're playing someone like Warwick or Fiddlesticks who we think of as like the automatic junglers nowadays. [00:42:54] Speaker B: I think those two are the only champions who anyone can take into the jungle and succeed in because their kits are the only ones in which unless you pick the wrong skill with either of them, if you pick your wrong level one skill, you can't jungle. [00:43:09] Speaker A: Yep. Also smite scales with your level instead of with the number of camps you've taken. So junglers have fun trying to smite steal or smite secure when the other jungler's at a different level than you are. And you each have different smite thresholds. [00:43:23] Speaker B: The way that like having to click on things to see the health bars and get noticing to figure out roughly how much health things are at very difficult in comparison. The other big change is the amount of money in the game. You are much poorer. Much poorer. [00:43:42] Speaker A: The gold overtime that is generated is way lower in the early game in classic than it is in modern. [00:43:50] Speaker B: So you will frequently find that like. And the item costs are wildly different. [00:43:55] Speaker A: Some are much higher, some are weirdly low. [00:43:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So things like iedge is like 3800. It's expensive. [00:44:03] Speaker C: A needlessly large rod is 1600 instead of 12. [00:44:07] Speaker B: And so if you are going into this game you will need to relearn everything if you want to play it consistently. [00:44:16] Speaker C: There's times now where you don't go back and buy just one component for your next item. You go buy and back multiple components for all your future items. You stack fairy charms, you stack Doran's rings different. Like there is a whole different way for a lot of ways to play your lane out which I find incredibly fun. A lot of people stack their gold items which there's gold generating items now you get GP or gold per 5 seconds. GP5s. [00:44:46] Speaker B: Yes. [00:44:46] Speaker C: So you get gold per 5 seconds and it all depends. And you get gold for minion kills on Avarice Blade. [00:44:53] Speaker A: And specifically, they also build into things. It's not just the buy these and then sell them eventually that some people remember. No, these are components for items as well. You have to build a heart of gold to build. I think Warmogs and Force of Nature, I think both build out of it. [00:45:09] Speaker B: Not 100% sure. I know Kage's lucky pick builds into like two separate. Actually fairly good items. [00:45:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:15] Speaker B: Most of the. The health, the grievous wounds ones are both built out of culprit five items. [00:45:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:24] Speaker C: It's just fun having like the whole new strategy on building. Like your. Your first power spike doesn't necessarily come when you have a completed item. Like. [00:45:36] Speaker B: Yeah, just not there. [00:45:38] Speaker A: Okay. What is everyone's biggest, like shock so far in league Classic? What. What surprised you or wasn't how you remembered Minion damage. Towers Minion damage because it's higher, lower. [00:45:52] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Like, if you it the. The aggro. Like how kill you easily. Minions aggro how. How they aggro you. I missed the change for when like, you're under a tower under your enemy's tower. And if they auto you, then your minions attack them. I missed that. That was quite. [00:46:12] Speaker A: Have minions felt more consistent than their behavior in classic than in modern to you guys? Because they have. [00:46:17] Speaker C: For me, yeah. They. They stay where they're like. They don't wander like randomly up the lane and just decide that they're like, I'm gonna change my target here because [00:46:27] Speaker B: of all the optimization they've done to minions to make it so that you don't get the massive waves. And that wave clears are things they have a consistent. Even I AI this is what I'm supposed to do and I'm gonna do it. [00:46:44] Speaker C: I will say, like, if you draw minion aggro by autoing, you get punished big time. Like, the minion damage is much more punishing. They'll kill you very quickly. Very quickly. [00:46:58] Speaker A: So, Mike, you said towers. What about towers surprised you? [00:47:02] Speaker B: There's three things that about. Are there towers that are so different? And it feels very weird. No plating means it's so much easier to kill towers. No minion backdoor blocking. Which means you don't need minions there in order to do full damage to towers. And am I wrong? It doesn't feel like there's scaling for each auto attack on. On a tower. [00:47:24] Speaker C: They don't ramp. [00:47:25] Speaker B: They don't ramp. Okay. [00:47:27] Speaker C: Or they don't ramp in classic. [00:47:29] Speaker B: So you can just sit there tanking a tower essentially forever, as long as [00:47:34] Speaker A: you have enough healing or shielding. [00:47:36] Speaker B: It's. It's very weird. [00:47:38] Speaker C: I found it's kind of a relief to, you know, your goal. Shove, wave back. Shove, wave back. Your minions are who you're expecting to do the damage to the tower because you're trying your back timers. Like you have to now wait for your health to regenerate and your mana to regenerate. And it's much slower. So you forgot about timings are inherently longer. So most people just will shove waves. If they have a little bit of damage, they'll back. And minions are what do the damage to towers. [00:48:09] Speaker B: Your. Your knack, Bexis, Nexus, pool, whatever. Your. Your back area doesn't massively heal you very quickly. It doesn't massively give you regen things. You are sitting waiting for 5, 10 seconds to regen if you go back at low health. [00:48:22] Speaker A: Yep. So I think you guys are gonna laugh because both of you listed like, systemic things. What surprised me the most with League Classic is I remember Kassadin being the most overpowered psychotic thing ever. And he feels like shit to play. As in classic, his W is not an auto attack reset. It does not have passive damage on hit unless it's active. All it is is just like a 5 second buff that makes you do more on hit damage. [00:48:52] Speaker B: And because of. Yeah, because of the way old champions were, Kassadin's kit was significantly more powerful in this age. [00:49:01] Speaker A: Yes. [00:49:02] Speaker B: So he's op, but he's. [00:49:04] Speaker A: But he feels bad to play. His E has no cooldown. It instead has a cast lockout. There have to have been enough spells cast near him to be able to use it again. Which I did remember, but I didn't remember how bad that feels in a 1v1 lane. Unless you're against Karthus. [00:49:22] Speaker B: If you're against someone who has a lot of casts, great. You could use your E a million times. Your Q is significantly more powerful. [00:49:30] Speaker A: It's a silence, not an interrupt. A silence. And Kassadin's Ult doesn't scale with mana, just ap. So he's not as much of a like mana stacker the way modern Kassadin is. He just needs enough mana to be allowed to riftwalk the amount he wants. And otherwise he just needs raw ap. [00:49:49] Speaker B: There is so much less ability to get mana and mana regen if you're building ap. [00:49:53] Speaker A: Yeah. The only mana AP items that have good Amounts of both are Seraphs and Rod of Ages. That's it. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Lich Bane is a mana item because Sheen is a mana item. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Yes, but it doesn't have a lot of mana, so it doesn't solve your mana problems. [00:50:10] Speaker B: No, but all of these items that have mana don't have mana regen. None of those do. Except for Rod giving you stuff on level up. [00:50:16] Speaker A: And there's no buff duplication in sharing from the jungle to where in the mid to late game you just are gonna get blue buffs. Now you have to fight your jungler for them. Just like it used to be. [00:50:26] Speaker B: Just like it used to be. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Okay, so that's. That's our initial impressions of League Classic. It is fun. I definitely think Modern League is better. What about you guys? I'll. [00:50:37] Speaker C: I'll agree. I think the Modern League is definitely better, but I'm having a lot more fun than I expected in Classic. [00:50:45] Speaker B: I think my key here is if I'm playing with a smaller group of people, I'm enjoying Modern League more in five man stacks. I'm really enjoying Classic because it feels like a much more team oriented game in this old world because you have so much less individual power early on. To do so much more, you need much more coordination. So when we get like a four or five man stack, that feels much more fun to play. I feel like I'm completely shut out of games. Way less. [00:51:20] Speaker A: Absolutely. So there's a second component of Classic we want to talk about briefly. It's the one I'm actually having more fun with of the two, which is Classic ish Mayhem. Oh, I want to note. I think it's hilarious. I don't know if it does this for regular League Classic, but when you're playing Classic ish Mayhem, you show up on people's friends list as being on Summoners SR as the game mode. [00:51:47] Speaker B: Yes, you do. [00:51:47] Speaker A: Summoner's Rift. Not Butcher's Bridge or any of those things. SR question mark. [00:51:53] Speaker B: Which is hilarious. [00:51:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's hilarious. So Classic ish Mayhem is on the Classic map, but limited, so you can't leave mid lane very much. [00:52:06] Speaker B: There's a tiny hint into the jungle and the river, but not. Not far enough into. So you can pick it camps. [00:52:12] Speaker A: Exactly. There's paths on the sides of the lane to allow you to like wander around the jungle a little bit, make flanking plays. Fiddlesticks is very happy about this, for example, because he can actually set up his ultimate. But you're playing Aram Mayhem on this map with modern kits and classic items. [00:52:34] Speaker B: This is the classic set of champions. Every champion who is in Classic is in this in their modern versions. [00:52:43] Speaker A: Yes. The in their modern versions is the key here is some champions are kinda shit when they're limited by the classic items. And some champions are psychotic with the classic items. And some of the new augments that Classic ish Mayhem adds to the pool, you can get Infinitely stacking Infinite Rod of Ages. [00:53:07] Speaker B: What he means by Infinite Rod of Ages is Rod of Ages has a stack cap at 10. Not in this. [00:53:14] Speaker A: It does normally only. This augment allows you to exceed it. This augment allows it to keep stacking forever, makes it stack super fast, and lets you build as many of them as you can fit in your inventory. It's hilariously OP on Ryze and pretty good on a lot of other champions because Ryze has a kit that scales with mana and ap. [00:53:33] Speaker B: Ryze is. Ryze is the only one who scales with mana in this. And this is the version of Ryze. [00:53:39] Speaker A: Well, actually, no Classic Modern is Modern Rise. [00:53:43] Speaker B: Even Modern Rise scales well with AP or without mana, just not as good as he does with ap. [00:53:49] Speaker A: So Modern Rise. The reason this is crazy on him specifically, his passive gives him a percent increase for mana based on his ap. So when you're building Infinitely Stacking Rod of Ages, you're getting a shitload of mana and a shitload of AP that then multiplies up your shitload of mana. So you do absolutely gobsmacking amounts of damage. The one thing it's missing is it doesn't have the heal that modern Rod of Ages has. It has a different heal entirely. You heal on level up, which is hilarious until you hit level 18 and you stop getting a heal entirely. [00:54:23] Speaker B: Yeah, this is. This is just such a fun game mode. And it is distinctly not just Mayhem or Aram because of the way that they've changed the map and they have a mix between modern and classic stuff. It feels wholly unique to any other game mode. So I have reasons to choose Regular Mayhem and Classic Mayhem. [00:54:50] Speaker C: Yeah, so make sure you feed the Baron. [00:54:53] Speaker A: So that's an important thing. You can feed Baron or Dragon. They're on their respective sides of the rift. In Classic ish Mayhem, if both teams all feed the same target, both teams get a permanent buff. I'm not sure what Dragon does exactly. Baron gives everyone an extra augment. [00:55:16] Speaker B: If I remember rightly, someone was saying that Dragon gives you like base stats and increased exp. [00:55:21] Speaker A: Gen. Something like that. It's a stat increase, so it's less fun than an extra Augment. [00:55:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Potentially stronger, potentially weaker. A lot of augments are very weak. A lot of augments are bullshit. And of course, because there's a whole set of unique stuff here, there's a whole set of unique augments because Deathfire Grasp doesn't exist in any other game mode. Dead Classic. So there's an augment that buffs Deathfire Grasp. [00:55:50] Speaker A: It's very fun. It's very busted. It's one of the best augments. [00:55:55] Speaker B: Give that like one of my favorite champions to have, Thomas Ahri. She benefits so much from it. [00:56:02] Speaker A: Also play around with some of the classic ish items. Some of the champions just get silly with it. There's Shushe's flask. I forget what it's called. Exactly. That's like an AP Mr. Item that heals you when you get a takedown. You build that on Ahri and you heal so much on every takedown. It's actually hilarious. [00:56:22] Speaker C: Mm. [00:56:23] Speaker A: Also, Shushe is the fucking goat. [00:56:25] Speaker B: Shushi is great play. Gragas and a Rembrance. [00:56:28] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Any other thoughts about Classic ish Mayhem? [00:56:33] Speaker B: I'm excited to see where it goes when we start getting these new champions to come in. It's the exact same thing with Classic in general. I think this is going to be. If anything stays, this is staying. I think this Classic ish Mayhem is so fun that we should ask to make sure this is a permanent game mode that. Make sure that these mayhem modes, because both of them are fantastic, I think these should become permanent things and we need to be asking for them. [00:57:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. So, guys, you don't get a Lucian Top this week because you write in. He's not in classic and you didn't write in any questions. So write in to theforwardspodcastmail.com or drop your questions in the question submission channel on the Discord server so we can start memeing Lucian Top at you again. For now, that's been episode 542. I've been Jack Sohlman for Mike and many names for Pillow Pet. Have a great night. [00:57:30] Speaker C: Good night. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Good night, everybody. [00:57:33] 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 Fourwards podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.