[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast.
Hey, what's up? It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven Jerks and Velkoz.
And you're listening to the Four Wards
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Podcast here to help you move forward in League.
Hello and welcome to episode 546 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Zolman and I've got with me three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Mike of many names.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: You'll never guess who the last one is.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: It's true, they won't. We've also got Pillow Pet.
[00:00:55] Speaker D: Hello.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: And returning former four Awards alumni Witchit Black Mass.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: It's been a long time which we'll catch up with you in a moment. Let's get through our introduction stuff, guys. We are the Four Words Podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. The link is in the episode description. We play normal games all the time. We talk about other games. We talk about anime. We talk about whatever strikes your fancy. Come join. Come hang out. Link is in the episode description.
Some of us stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV. JacksonOlman Mike can be found at Twitch TV. Mike of many names. Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch tv. Pillowpet and I want to give a shout out to our patrons who support us at the shout out tier on Patreon. They are Codex Ninja, Pillow Pet, Labana, Uncle ChrisCo and Skipius Esquire. Thank you guys so much for your support. We appreciate all our patrons though. If you head over to patreon.com the Fourwards podcast, you can show us some support. One doll 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 that same exclusive feed. And we will shout your name 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. Last but not least, listeners, we need more questions. Write in to the 4 wards podcastmail.com or drop your questions in the Question Submission channel in the Discord so we can answer them on the show.
All right witch, it's been at least a year since you've been on this show. I guarantee there's a bunch of listeners who don't even know who the hell you are. But tell us a bit about yourself and tell us what you've been up to since you've been gone.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: I just been incredibly busy, to be honest.
I do run like a.
A competitive org for like lower ranked league players from essentially Platinum to Diamond Rank whenever it comes to games. And we'd play in tournaments and stuff like that.
So that takes up a lot of my time. Unfortunately, the people that I was running it with, they decided to take a break for the time being. So that's what I've really been doing, investing my time in that. And yeah, I'm glad to be back. I'm. I tentatively. I don't want to say I want to like guaranteed, but I'd like to try to do this more often in general and actually be part of the show again.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: We were happy to have you back whenever your schedule allows. You are not the first and probably not the last host to leave due to just schedule in life and just not having the time. And almost every one of them is welcome back.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: We're glad to have you back.
Yeah. Thank you.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: So guys, it's a patch week. Patch 2617 just came out a couple days ago and we're gonna talk about it. I want to kick it off with just a quick change.
Riot apparently thinks LeBlanc is weak. I'm not complaining. They. They reverted some attack speed shit with her. That was changed back when she was broken with Statik Shiv to try to make her not broken with Statikk Shiv. An old version of it. That's just a revert. It makes her feel a little smoother last hitting minions when you build maybe some incidental attack speed, but it's not a big deal.
Mostly it makes Lich Bane feel a little better on her if you go Lich Bane.
But the big one is they buffed the AP ratio on both her W and RW by 10% which is big because that's her reliable damage.
LeBlanc was already one shotting squishies without using her full kit. I don't know what they're thinking but I'm gonna enjoy it and abuse it while I can because she's fun as to play.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: It's also like her wave clear spell that she did use like in the between or whatever. Obviously in the I don't know how much this would impact in. In doing that.
[00:04:59] Speaker C: So.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: But this is the spell that used to shove and then move to be able to pressure the map. Right. So it. It's beneficial for that too. So.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Yep. And thankfully they didn't they didn't buff the base damage of it because it doesn't fucking need it. So it won't change her early wave clear much. But yeah, she's. She's gonna have ridiculous amounts of wave clear if she throws herself into the wave.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: This is also just like a little bit of technicality on how they've written it down. I like that they put the mimic version here and not a separate line of it. This is all distortion numbers. You're gonna learn all of it through here.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. Mike, your turn.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: Okay. So I may not talk about it often, but one of my favorite mid laners to play is Aurelion Sol. Since his change. I loved his very initial version. I love what they made him out into being.
They've done.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: You just wanted to pretend you were Hoohi with the original version.
[00:05:53] Speaker C: No, I used to play him jungle.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: I don't know how I feel about that.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: It was not easy. The. The very original version. When you had control over your W stars. Yeah, when you had control over your W.
This.
This change is. Is minimal, but it means a lot in two points.
First, just the mana cost per second of his Q is going down 5 at all ranks. That is massive for his early game potential to fight people and farm because your Q is how you do most of those. The second is that the scaling cooldown from Astral Flight, it starts the same, but it ends two seconds shorter.
This is trying to. To incentivize. And realistically it. It really does incentivize leveling up W second as opposed to E.
E does not gain a lot of scaling through leveling it up. Mostly it gains the base mana tick damage per. Like it's very small in how much damage per ticket does. Most of it is based on the execute window and the fact that it. It's just huge. It actually has a per level scale as opposed to just a per rank scale. So giving all this. This rather large cooldown reduction into your W really incentivizes maxing W second because it's more than just your movement. It is a significant damage increase on the base damage on Q.
It more than doubles the damage on your Q when you're channeling it while you.
You breathe on it. So like they want you to actively be leveling up W and it is the right call.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Fair enough. Pillow. You know what else is the right call?
[00:07:34] Speaker D: I would say these nasus changes.
So I have been abusing nasus in the top lane and it's been pretty successful the last few games I played With Jax, I've usually been playing Nasus so they kind of reverted his passive buff. It was 12 scaling up to 24% lifesteal based off his level and now it is just 10%. Scaling up to 20% is definitely much needed. This coming from his recent stacking changes.
It just made him a late game scaling monster. Just having 24% just lifesteal for no reason, no items is just very strong.
It hasn't changed its win rate a whole lot. He's still S tier. It's went down about 2 to 3% in Emerald Plus.
It's. There's. There's ways to itemize around the early game of this depending on your matchups. Spirit Visage helps out early.
There's still the what's. What's the.
I can't think of the ruin off
[00:08:41] Speaker A: the top of my head Fleet Fleet
[00:08:43] Speaker D: Fleet Footwork still helps out a lot.
He is still a monster come to late game just because of the stacking but they're hitting it in the right spot which is with his lifesteal.
Like I said, his win rate hasn't changed a whole lot. He's still at like 51 to 52% win rate which is very high for a very immobile top laner. He's very easily abused early, but if just allowed to stack like the last game I had playing with Jax, he just becomes a monster.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I think of the innate like way that the game is like played right now whenever like I mean top is usually left on island whenever it comes to like certain things I would say. I mean you can punish people whenever they pick certain champions, but if you don't actually look at Nasus even after these nerfs like Nasus is still a monster whenever if you just leave him be.
[00:09:37] Speaker D: So yeah, that's always been the case. And I think what's scary now with Nasus is a lot of people started like he got some attention so a lot more people are playing him. So I don't even think these nerfs are going to be enough because of how his kit works with the unlimited scaling.
Unless they try to revert back to stacking or hit him in other areas with his survivability.
I just don't see this changing him because he's became more popular. People will change up build paths if they have to to get him back into life. Steal or some kind of omnivamp situation. I don't know yet. But with more more eyes on him, the I do imagine if he started to suffer they would Change his build path just a little bit. Even a Rift Maker. Like, I've seen people build Riftmaker on him now.
[00:10:25] Speaker C: That's weird a little bit. But I think the main way, like if they want to nerf him without destroying him, make it so that instead of having the cooldown on how often you can queue when you alt change that number, drop it by half a second instead of a full second or something like that. That's. That's how you're going to hit him without destroying him. Because you're still stacking, but now you don't have as much dueling power. No.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess he is really strong.
[00:10:47] Speaker D: His Q is really strong, especially in that ultimate.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: I just wish they'd change how cripple effects work so that Nasus doesn't just literally disable auto attacks on most champions.
[00:10:59] Speaker C: It's disgusting how strong that E is.
[00:11:02] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. His. His wither is always. I've always said it is the strongest ability in the game.
Maybe right before Zillion Slow.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: That was very strong. Plop that. Put that on like Zeri, you know, whenever, like you're playing bot and it's like she can't play the game.
[00:11:23] Speaker D: No auto attacker likes it.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Wait, it's your turn.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: My turn. I just wanted to take a small one. I just wanted to talk about cho'. Gath. Not specifically necessarily for the changes, but they realized that with the Halo blades, which was most commonly the cho' Gath rune that people would take and then the Hextech rocket belt nerfs, that they wanted to give him a little love.
So they increased his E damage overall from 20, 40, 60, 80 to 30, 50, 70, 90. So it's basically stronger at every rank.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: So I don't think they increase the
[00:12:05] Speaker A: AP ratio, but they increased the.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: No, no, no.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Increase the base damage. Yep, just the base damage. But I wanted to bring it to people's attention too, that they changed a few things a while ago to make cho' Gath right now or to make cho' Gath Jungle more viable right now. He's actually really, really strong in the jungle. People just aren't playing him for some reason. So I just wanted to bring people that. To that attention that these nerfs that happened to cho', Gath, they didn't really affect cho' Gath Jungle. And I think people should look at it more. I think that the champion is really, really good there. So.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: And Cho Jungle was already maxing vorpal spikes because it's his best clear ability, right?
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Fair enough.
[00:12:50] Speaker D: You Know what?
[00:12:51] Speaker B: We're just going to snake draft this, which go again. I'm going to save my level last.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: That's perfect. I would love to talk about Trundle. I think the champion was never really, really in a bad state, but they gave him a little bit of love.
They increased his W later on. The scaling that you get for the attack Speed, so was 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, and then now it's 30, 50, 70, 90, 110. This is typically the second ability you max unless if I mean actually you just always max w second pretty much.
So given that the ability itself is like really, really strong, increases your like, like your regen whenever you're standing in the zone and everything else. The attack speed is just generally nice. So just something to keep in mind that if you're playing Trundle in the jungle or top, I would say like these buffs are just genuinely nice to duel and scrap in the like mid to late game fights that you're taking with Trundle.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Fair enough.
Speaking of late game fights, Pillow who's getting a big buff?
[00:14:00] Speaker D: So the Windbros are.
This is mainly targeted for Yasuo's Basically their crit damage is going up by 5% there. They have inert like crit damage reduction. It was 10% reduction. Now it's 5%.
They mainly are doing this for Yasuo so he doesn't just have to snowball to be strong. But as they said, bro, stay together. So they went ahead and buffed Yone too. He didn't necessarily need it, in my opinion, but they got what they do to one, they do to the other. I think it's always been the case for them with.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: With the specific like tweaks that are unique to the pair of them. Yes.
I am surprised they didn't give Yone like a. A numbers nerf to his Q or something at the same time. Because I do agree Yone was in a better place than Yasuo at the time.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:14:52] Speaker C: The thing is, I think Yone. Yone has an easier time playing the early game and Yasuo has a much easier time playing the end game. His potential is disgusting. In outplay potential, Yone also just has
[00:15:06] Speaker B: a lot more personal agency.
[00:15:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. I think that Yone mechanically has a lot more options than Yasuo, but.
Sorry, but Yasuo from a tactical level is a really, really strong champion. That requires a lot of time in comparison to Yonyon.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: Windwall is stronger than Yone's entire kit when used well yes.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: But YONE is like just strong overall. Yeah. As you said. Like, I think that I'm surprised that either they didn't give it like a little notch, like maybe like 7% or something like that just to gauge. Because I. I do do truly think that yone is one kind of like the better champ for most solo play games. And then two is a little bit stronger innately than Yasuo, so.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, but yeah, generally like the. The crit damage modifier on the two of them or like, I think one time they changed some other value on Q. They change it to both of them and then numbers are allowed to differ for the two of them.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: This number has gone down so much. Didn't they used to do 50% crit damage?
[00:16:11] Speaker B: It wasn't 50%, but it was 25 or something reduced.
[00:16:16] Speaker D: So for those that 20 or 25 for those that don't know, the reason they do reduce crit damage is because they get double crit damage chance on their items.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: And then extra crit scales into their ad.
[00:16:28] Speaker D: And then their extra crit. Yeah, it scales into their ad. So they. They get 100 crit off of two items. I know that they had changed the conversion. So they're. At one point they needed three items to get 100 crit and then they reverted that back because it was too much of a nerf.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that lasted one batch
[00:16:48] Speaker D: or something that was not long, but. So they've always did less crit damage. But now they're almost doing 100 crit
[00:16:57] Speaker B: damage, which is wild because I think they're. Because it's what them and Tryndamere are the champions who just get more crit than normal innately for various ways. And Tournament doesn't have any penalty. Senna gets a damage reduction very little. I don't think she has a damage reduction on crits anymore. She used to anyway.
[00:17:17] Speaker D: Mike.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Speaking of used to, they're actually doing the opposite of what they used to do with this champion.
[00:17:24] Speaker C: You know there's buffs for Irelia.
This is an important note to point out.
Most of these buffs are not real. Buffs do not play around them in real games. They are meant for wacky shenanigan times. We're gonna start with those two. Your W and your ULT are both getting AP ratio buffs. Irelia does not build AP in real games.
In fact, I don't see anything that has AP in real games. So both. Both of those ratios. Yes, they are surprisingly high ratio buffs. Don't. Don't bother with them, they're not relevant to most gameplay. However, her core power, her Q the Blade surge is getting a 10% AD ratio buff straight up. And realistically this is because Irelia monsters through the early game and then sort of loses to most champions late. And that snowball that you've built does nothing. So they're trying to make it so that that snowball holds for a little longer.
That's. That's really it. I. I don't know how I feel about this. Irelia is either incredibly frustrating or irrelevant.
So I'm not really sure.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: I'm very unhappy with this because it does nothing to solve the frustration or fix her relevance.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Her. Her biggest problem is the healing problem. And that's. That's not going away until they figure out how to change it.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: I mean like the champions innately tied to like building one item first, right? Like, when's the last time you've seen Irelia not build like Bork or first like item is just so. Yeah, she has to like.
[00:19:00] Speaker D: So like Irelia has what I mainly see this Q buff doing. It's the 10% ad is pretty significant, but there's break points in the game. Like as long as the game goes and considered her build when she. When she gets Bork, she is normally able to one shot the back line when she's fully stacked. Like just always just then there's at some point mid game where she falls off and can no longer just dance through the minion waves because it no longer one shots these minions. This is going to turn it on where she's able to one shot these minions I without even being fully stacked. I feel like haven't tested it myself, but I think her mobility is going to go way up as a byproduct of this Q buff.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it'll help out for sure.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: All right, time for me to rant a bit. Because Riot finally figured out that Graves is way too strong and they completely missed everything on why and how to fix it. They are nerfing the AD ratio on Graves Q.
Which cool. It's a nerf. He needs nerfs.
The problem with Graves is not his Q. If you get hit by both parts of his Q, you should take a lot of damage. The problem with Graves is entirely the amplified damage he gets when he shotguns you with his auto attack. I am not exaggerating. As an ad carry, I have had a late grain graves do 2,500 damage in a single auto on me.
Jhin wishes he could crit that hard. And that's the problem Graves has is his burst from his auto attacks are too high. I would rather they revert this nerf and make it so extra pellets on his auto attacks do a smaller amount extra damage so that he has less burst if he just goes in melee range and punches you in the face with his shotgun.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: I have a different approach whenever it comes to like Graves, I think that that's also like a good change too. But I think that his grit that he gets from his E that the innate armor value and then I think he also got his Mr. Value gained back a little bit too a while back allows him to be able to skirmish in the early game, which is like supposed. Like you're supposed to be able to invade on Graves and like play like relatively aggressive on Graves and stuff like that. But it whenever he gets so much armor from walking forward and auto attacking you and there's little counterplay that you can actually do because the more he auto attacks, the faster E comes up and the stro and the more tanky he gets. Like, you don't believe that Graves is tanking until you get to like a mid game fight and you're like, holy crap, that guy has more armor than my Garen. That's been only building one armor item one Mr. Item top lane, you know what I mean? So just I think they could notch those numbers as well and I think that would make a decent change as well.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: If they want to give him this. This sturdiness to him and make him try and be a bruise, make it a percent buff instead of flat buff. Make us that you have actually to
[00:22:02] Speaker B: itemize it because right now he gets to itemize crit, marksman, lethality and just one shot people, while still having bruiser level durability.
But like I said, I just think this is the wrong direction. I don't mind when Graves Q bursts the shit out of me because it means either I didn't get out of the way or I let myself get pinned against a wall or I was cc'd.
There was something that was done to outplay me as opposed to, oh, he dashed forward and right clicked me and I died instantly.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Yeah, like he has to hit a wall to get both interactions like very fast. Right? If he cues you in a wave or let's say like in the middle, like it's very easy to dodge the second part of it. So like I completely agree with that assessment.
[00:22:43] Speaker C: It's like, yeah, it may still have been too strong, but we'll see if this does anything.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: He's still listed as a Tier 1 jungler on OP GG. He's barely seen a win rate drop at from this change. Like it has technically gone down.
But my issue isn't his overall win rate. My issue is how obnoxious he feels when he gets a lead. I mean, realistically, to make me happy, you could literally just remove hubris from the game. And I think I have no more issue with Graves. He's just really fucking snowbally.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yes, very. Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: And I don't understand why hubris exists. It's literally sort of the occult, but better.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Actually having Sword of the Occult in lol Classic makes me understand how much better hubris is than Sword of the Occult. Because hubris is a whole ass item with whole ass item stats plus Sword of the Occult on top of it.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: Yeah. If they want to do this.
And with no cap back to sort
[00:23:40] Speaker B: of the occult and with no cap. That's the other problem. Sword of the Occult for those who don't know and haven't played classic or don't remember is just magi's. But for ad yeah.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: The reasoning behind bringing it, not bringing it back, it's kind of contradictory to like having that item in the game too.
[00:23:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it's because theoretically hubris can wear out.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah, hubris can fall off. And then you don't have the stacks until you get a kill again. But the stacks are infinite and infinitely stacking. Like you can just keep stacking it forever. Which is my problem. It's literally better than Mageyes. It's better than Sword of the Occult. It's stupid anyway. That's why I wanted to save my rant for last Mike. I think you're the one who put this trinket tip in here.
[00:24:24] Speaker C: I did. This is not a trinket tip.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Explain.
[00:24:25] Speaker C: This is a trinket demand. This is. This is a demand. If you're playing in a mode that has a champion select that isn't just pick champion go. Once you start, stay in it, pay attention. People are going to try and trade. People are going to try and talk move positions. The most annoying thing in the world is not being able to trade with someone and then having them go, oh shit, my bad. And then you are now stuck in a bad position.
You've given them counterplay.
Side note. Same sort of theory on this one.
If your lane opponent has very, very, very obviously picked like you're an AD carry and you see the bot lane on the other side, trade away your late pick. Or better yet, as an ad carry. Just trade away. Your late pick counter play in bot lane is significantly less powerful than counter play in top and the mid. Specifically counter pick. Yeah.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I think that if you want to increase like your win rate genuinely in a game, have a like, like a safe blind pick that you're willing to do in. If you don't play a solo solo lane role that way, like you can tentatively say that your top lane might not tilt off the planet.
Yeah, keyword is might might.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:25:41] Speaker C: Neither of us was playing top laner, but our top laner had to pick second because the ad carry refused to give him up the fourth position when they saw ad carry on the other side.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
Now that person also then went on to carry the game. I'm just saying they did a good job. Still a dick movement addendum to this. Bring back an old one poop before you queue.
[00:26:06] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: With how short like load times are and like how like fast minions spawn and camp spawn. Now like you better be the fastest if you do it. But like yeah, I suggest you don't.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: So I think we literally titled an episode like that like a hundred episodes ago.
[00:26:25] Speaker C: You. In most games you have less than a minute from when you finish champion select to when the game starts.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: Load times are not long unless there's like 5 million disconnects. And that's been.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Even if it has been. Even if you are literally the first pick in the game, you still only have a couple minutes before the game has started.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: All right, we got a couple listener questions. As a reminder listeners, you can write into the four wards podcastmail.com or drop your questions in the question submission channel. In the Discord, we have some from both tonight.
Our first set of questions comes from Skippius Esquire who wrote in question on the timing of buys. As an ad carry, I am often buying Infinity Edge. Although it is not normally my first buy, it's usually second or third depending on the champion and matchup. However, sometimes I am forced to stay in lane a bit longer than desired and I back with 1300 or more gold. Since that is such a big price tag, should I be buying bf sword and delaying my first item? The 4080 still helps. Or should I just use the gold to buy my first item? So I. I have some assumptions I want to preface this with. I'm assuming you are playing an auto attacking crit ad carry just based on the fact that you say you're buying
[00:27:40] Speaker C: Infinity Edge, you're buying an edge.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: We're assuming yes Corki exists. He's not really an auto attacking, but he does build. I.
I am assuming your first item is Kraken Slayer or collector, basically because that's you or Hex Optics, because those are the three like first items in that class of ad carries most of the time.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: If you're in a situation where you have 1300 gold before you back, just pivot to Yuntal. Yuntal is incredible if you can get through the terrible build path. It's so strong, but the build path is so weak and puts you behind because you have to save up 1300 gold to buy a bf sword for a starter item. Yeah, if, but if you're already in
[00:28:24] Speaker C: that situation, then yeah, if you magically find yourself with a BF sword suddenly pivot to Yuntal, it is better than almost any other item. As an individual single item, it gives
[00:28:35] Speaker B: you everything you want.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: A few patches ago they, they buffed it or whatever. And so I think that Yuntal is actually not too, too bad. And then I think that with some.
I actually don't remember what if does Storm Razor build out of bsr? I don't think so.
[00:28:50] Speaker D: Right.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: I believe it does.
[00:28:52] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: So like if you're building like they recently buffed that as well and some ad carries are, are picking up that.
Yes. Yeah. So it depending on like if you're playing like Caitlyn for example, like StormRazor is like relatively decent as like a first item. It's just really, truly dependent on like your lane state on and like how much gold you back. Like if you, if you back and you, you are forced to back because of your hp. I think it's better for you to buy something before you get back to lan rather than just waiting on your gold. Like I think that you should be buying a boot and like a long sword that still builds into Yuntal for example, and maybe like a health pot or something like that just so that you can survive until you get that threshold to be able to actually buy your first item.
But yeah, I think that there's mistakes that people make where they buy like the slingshot and I think that's really bad, but because I don't think that's a particularly great item to buy on your first pack. And a lot of ad carries make that mistake of buying it.
But yeah, that's my opinion on that.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: It's very much like if they fixed Yuntal's build path, every marksman that is in this specific subclass of marksman would be buying it first item, I think. Period. Yeah, like even the ones that currently have other really good for them starting items like Xayah would just build Yuntal if it had a good build path and she loves Essence Reaver. Same for everything.
[00:30:23] Speaker C: Besides the BF sword is cheap for both Intals and Stormrazor. Yep so like the the options once you get the bf sword those two suddenly become real options and I would 100% get them over an eye edge as your first item Iedge does not give you enough on its own, it needs the other like crit power to really benefit itself and it has nothing but damage.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Pretty much the the reason to go I edge first is you are playing specifically Ms. Fortune or Jhin who have automatic crits in their kits and you're really really fed and want to just snowball like crazy.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: To be honest, even MF I'd say just go Bloodthirster first if you get
[00:31:07] Speaker B: the BF sword I would too but I don't think it's necessarily wrong to go ie first in those situations. Okay question two which is related to last episode about playing in ranked one thing I've learned is you need to not only manage your own mental but also to the best of your ability to manage your teammates mental. So things like praising my support even when they don't do much to help in a fight but they also don't do dumb things goes a long way. My question is when should I just be following my team into the wrong play and when should I just back off and let them die to their mistake? I have been in games where I get flamed for not following my top laner into a no vision jungle on a chase when I do not see any of the enemy team on the map just knowing he is charging into certain death. When do you just die with the team and when do you live to fight another day?
[00:31:50] Speaker C: When fighting when not fighting will cost you the game.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yes, if your team is marching into certain death but their deaths will result in your nexus exploding, march in with them anyway. Do your best.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: I will say in in your example like following your top laner into a no vision scenario that's I don't do that. A lot of these mistakes that you're mentioning could just lead to you learning bad habits.
So just continue to work on your gameplay as well. Especially in like solo queue. You're going to lose 50% of your games anyway. Still continue to work on your habits and try not to create bad habits by going to these lose lose situations.
[00:32:38] Speaker C: I think the main one really is if it's one person alone Going in and they're expecting you to follow, you shouldn't be. If it's your entire team going into a situation and you're alone, you sort of need to back them up.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: I think it is dependent on the time of the game as well.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: Yeah, that's true.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Like I think that like if you're in a late game scenario, yeah, I think that you should follow but like if you're in the scenario where you just got bot tower and you're moo. I'm assuming this is ad carry perspective and then you're transitioning to mid and you're just shoving wave and like trying to play for objective and playing for Prio. I think that there's a moment where you realize that like where you're actively looking at the map and you realize that it's a bad decision that your teammates are making. And you not moving doesn't lose you the game but gets you x amount of resource in the game. It's fine not to move, but you just need to find that line where it comes a certain point in the game where the game is lost if you don't move. You have to move with your team to enable them. Especially if you hadn't moved prior to.
[00:33:43] Speaker C: So most of the time it's hard to see this, but the general rule of thumb is with back timers and respawn timers, it's if within the respawn timers for your team they can shove down a lane and end it. Usually that's 35 to 40 seconds. Usually that's around 35 minutes.
If you can survive with two people, sometimes you can hold one person almost never. So if there's two of you holding back, don't go. Two people is usually enough to stop them. One, you may as well go in.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Fair enough. And on the other part of your question, there's an old video called Dick Sucking Theory from a creator who I don't particularly want to promote because he's not a very good person. But it works.
Just talk nice to your teammates and try to praise them for doing basic things that anyone should fucking do.
Actually genuinely does win your game.
[00:34:39] Speaker C: If, if they haven't already thrown a toxic fit, usually this will work. If they've already done that, you. You should just be at them and ignore them entirely. Because nothing is you say is about.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: I think as someone who plays jungle the most like as my main role like I think that you often get blamed for the most whenever it comes to certain things in the game. The biggest thing that you can do is even if you don't even see the play. Like you just yourself your top laner. So like solo kills. You just throw a good job, you know, whatever it might be in. In the chat, continue your full clear or whatever it might be. And then if someone rapidly flames you despite you making good plays on the map, let's say you're up Drakes. You got every single grub, whatever it is, and they flame you. You just click over them, you go mute and you continue playing your game. That is what you do. Like it's not worth your mental or time because I've gotten astro tilted from attempting to explain my thought process. And it's like we have two winning lanes and you're. You're getting dumpstered, brother. You just have to hold on for dear life because we're winning everywhere else. But it's not worth my.
My time to explain that in a game that we're. I know we're gonna win if I play towards my win conditions. Right? So.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: Okay. We also have a couple questions from Toast, who writes, is it ever worth going AD on Volibear, specifically Jungle? If so, when would it be good and what would the build look like? It's rare.
The so for those who don't play Volibear, Volibear only has two AD ratios that matter in his kit. His Q does have an AD ratio, but the ad ratios that matter are on his W, which is his bite where he marks you. The repeat casts have an AD ratio that increases the multiplier on the bite. So the more AD you have, the bigger the bite is than the first bite was in terms of damage healing is the same. And then his ultimate has a whopping 250% bonus ad ratio. So the circumstance where ad volibear is correct is A, you are not building Flicker Blade. B, you are against people who are very tanky because you need to be able to get that second W off for it to matter multiple times. Yes. And I'm trying to think of the best way to word this. You need to be a physical damage source for your team. Because his ultimate and his W are both physical damage. The rest of his kit is largely magic damage. And generally for Volibear, the build is dusk and dawn Flicker blade tank.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I think the important caveat to like building AD on Volibear would be that you still need to be the fighter. Like in. In the game. Like if you're building straight AD like it's. It's bad. You know what I mean? But if you're building stuff like Sterks or Titanic would be kind of a rare situation. But like. Like just stuff that innately gives you health is good.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Sterak is situationally correct always. Like there are just regardless of what the game champions are, sometimes Sterak's is just the right choice. It's the best anti burst item you can take. It's very good on him. Shojin is actually really good on him.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: That's what I was thinking again, if
[00:38:06] Speaker B: you're not going Flicker Blade.
Spear of Shojin is a lot of basic ability haste and another multiplier for your basic abilities. And most of your damage on a Vola Bear that's not heavy. AP is in your W.
If you're
[00:38:20] Speaker C: going into this bruiser build, Sundered sky multiplies into what you want.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: It did get nerfed and that's the main reason I didn't recommend it because I think it was borderline before it
[00:38:30] Speaker C: took so much multiple nerfs recently. Yeah.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:34] Speaker C: If it's a mostly ad team death stance is always a good idea.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So like there are items and you can get that multiplier quite high.
Vola Bear his. His W does. Normally the increased damage is 50% but if you have 200 bonus AD you're now doing double damage on W's instead when you get the them already being
[00:38:56] Speaker A: marked which is pretty big. I think that building AD is like few and far between. Like you won't have that many games that you're going to opt into.
Yeah. I think that optimally like you should practice just playing your typical Volibear build. But expect to expect you can try. Yeah.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: No. That being said, if you're playing a non Summoner's Rift game mode, by all means play AD Volibeara Mayhem. If you get good augments for it, like it can be great.
But Mayhem is a different beast entirely.
[00:39:27] Speaker C: What are your opinions on T Force on this?
[00:39:29] Speaker B: It's terrible. So the issue with Trinity Force is Trinity Force is at the strongest as a first item. You'll notice almost every champion who builds Trinity Force builds it first literally. I think without exception. Because as the game goes on more of your damage is going to come from sources other than the Spellblade procs. Volibear loves Dusk and Dawn because it applies his passive twice. So it helps him get to the point where he's chain lightning faster or apply double procs of chain lightning. So just as an individual single item, Dusk and Dawn is just better every time for him. It also has healing on it and More ability haste. It's just better for Volibear and then also if you're going for the ad build, it's not a very high ad item.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: No.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: The benefit of Trinity Force is that it has attack speed and so does
[00:40:19] Speaker C: Dusk and Dawn attack speed. The movement speed bonus.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it just doesn't give him what he needs. It seems like he should be good with it because his W gets down to like a two and a half, three second cooldown, but it's not what he wants.
[00:40:31] Speaker C: A spell blade is something that is is good for him, but like Iceborn Gauntlet is usually better.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Dusk and dawn is always better than Trinity Force, basically.
So Toast has one other question, which is Mike mentioned on the podcast this week that he only really likes to play ranked with a duo or in Flex Fives in Clash. I have pretty similar feelings towards this and I found myself playing less than I would want to only because I don't queue up alone. Do you have any tips for getting over that feeling of needing a friend in your ranked games?
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Nope. I have none.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: That's a surprise.
I think for me you just have to kind of get in the zone like whenever it comes to certain things. And for me that's like listening to like like a song or something like that. Like genuinely like getting into like the vibe or whatever where like you have like that if you're ambitious to as you said, like where you have like where you want to play but you just don't have people to play with or whatever. Like that's the way that I personally like kind of get into it or whatever. I think that otherwise you should probably just wait for people to montage music is what you're saying.
[00:41:43] Speaker C: Live to win Eye of the Tiger.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Exactly. Here.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: Here's the part that no one ever talks about.
Nothing stopping you from making friends from the people who you meet who aren't shitheads in your ranked games.
I literally have a folder in my friends list that is friendly randos and some of them I have played ranked with before and if they're on I will do OQ with. There's not a lot of them because if you've ever tuned in my twitch, you've seen the kind of people I usually get. But I have them. I've met people playing ranked that I play games with sometimes.
We met Mike, we met that couple playing norms that one time. I've played games with them multiple times.
[00:42:23] Speaker C: They were super sweet.
[00:42:24] Speaker D: I got.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I got pulled into doing the pulled in. That's a really weird, weird way of saying it. But I, I got pulled into, like, doing the podcast and like, I got introduced to it through, like, playing with, like, with. With you guys or whatever. And then that's how, you know, I didn't know you guys beforehand. So, like, that's, I mean, that's huge. Like, whenever you actually message between games or, hey, you played really well, like whatever it might be. And then you don't even have to join Discord. You know what I mean? Like, you can just like talk, like in text if you don't want to, you know, talk in VC or anything like that.
[00:43:03] Speaker C: So.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: And I mean, like I said, admittedly it doesn't happen often, but like, making friends in online gaming has been a thing for longer than League of Legends has. Like, all of us met through a shared love of gaming in various avenues of meeting each other. But that's what we're here for. Make some friends. And the nice thing is if they're people that you are meeting in your ranked games that were chill and actually people you'd want to talk to and play with, they're around your skill level so you can play ranked with them and climb together because you're actually appropriately matched for each other. That's why you got into a game together in the first place.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: True.
[00:43:41] Speaker C: I mean, I, I guess the only other option really is, is that if you, if you don't want to queue with people, you're. You're going to be taking Lucian into the top lane. That's. That's how you're going to do it with, with playing alone. That's how you're going to climb. You don't have to worry about when you're Lucian in the top.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: There you go. Lucian in the top has no friends. He doesn't need such things.
All right, guys, this has been episode 546 of the Forwards podcast, which it was a pleasure having you back. Hopefully we'll be seeing you on the pod again soon.
[00:44:11] Speaker A: I'm Hovind.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: I've been Jack Zillman for Mica, Many names for Pillow Pet and for Witch at Black Mass. Have a great night.
[00:44:18] Speaker D: Good night.
[00:44:20] Speaker C: Good night, everybody.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our
[email protected] the Four Wards Podcast. And of course, send your questions to the Four Wards podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the four Wards podcast at gmail com.
