The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 547: They’re Both Cool

[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 547 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Sohlman and I've got with me two other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:49] Speaker C: I can start to see the gray in my beard and it made me cough. [00:00:53] Speaker B: You're only just now starting. I'm jealous. I've been graying. [00:00:57] Speaker C: It was noticeable and then I was like, oh shit. That's like front and center. Damn. [00:01:03] Speaker B: I've been graying for years. I'm full on salt and pepper. It's hard to see on camera. [00:01:06] Speaker C: Well, it helps that I'm mostly bald. So fair. [00:01:10] Speaker B: We've also got with us two weeks in a row. Witch at Black Mass is here again. [00:01:15] Speaker A: Hola. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Imma have to change your role back to 4 wards podcast instead of former hosts. There you go, guys. We are the Four Wards Podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. It's a great time. We've been playing lots of normal games, especially now that I'm done with something I'll talk about in a little bit. Lots of norms. All skill levels are welcome. You don't have to be good at the game to come play with us. I promise we don't mind if you suck. We'll try our best to help, but mostly let's just have a good time. Who cares? Win or lose, it's more fun with friends. [00:01:48] Speaker C: In more recent like happenance. Right before I went out for the weekend, I got to see a bunch of people hanging out doing games without any of us around. [00:01:58] Speaker B: That was awesome. [00:01:58] Speaker C: It's great to see. [00:01:59] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:02:00] Speaker B: That's what the Discord's for. It's to hang out and play games with people. So come join. Link is in the episode description. We also stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch tv. Jackson Mike can be found at Twitch TV mikeofmanynames and when he's not being crushed by work, Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch TV Pillowpet and we gotta give a shout out to our patrons. Thank you Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Skippy as Esquire for supporting the podcast at the shout out tier. You guys are keeping this show on the Internet. If you want to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com theforwards podcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. Or just us shooting the shit for five minutes before we figure out what the hell we're doing. And $10 a month will get you that same exclusive feed and we'll 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. We had Witch on there again last week. It was great. [00:03:02] Speaker A: It's a good time. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Last but not least listeners, we need more questions. I want you to write in to the4wordspodcastmail.com with your questions you want us to answer on the show. Or if you really would prefer to do it on the Discord, you can. There is a question submission channel on the Discord so that's okay too. But email is the easier option for me. So if it's easy, if it's the same for you, please send it to theforwardspodcastmail.com so we got kind of a grab bag of topics tonight and we're going to start with I want to talk about some of my experiences because as you may know listeners, I have been grinding ranked this year. I have played over 500 games of ranked in 2026 and I finally made it back to Emerald. Oh God, it was such a slog to get there but I made it. I'm currently Emerald 496LP. I was Emerald 3 but oh no, I'm Emerald 3 17LP. The stat sites are wrong so I've made it like past the plat one. Emerald 4 Humphreys is the important part there. So with that accomplishment I want to talk about some of the things I've noticed because I have literally gone from playing in like Gold four silver lobbies to Emerald three lobbies now in the span of nine months. So the first thing I noticed now that I'm in Emerald is supports in Emerald are fucking crazy. Like just across the board. Supports in Emerald are roaming a lot more. They're ganking mid. They have mechanics all of a sudden which is something that supports in gold. I'm sorry they're terrible mechanically not so in Emerald. [00:04:51] Speaker C: You'll notice in a lot of higher level play supports are the People who get things done. It sounds like this is where that start. That trend starts where like supports are fucking hard carries. And that is why you don't see a lot of main supports and lower levels. Because if you're good at it, you just go up and up and up real fast. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Yeah, because supports are the ones who make things happen. As Mike said, it's very noticeable. I'm seeing threshes that just are everywhere and hitting every hook and always have a lantern to save the day. I'm seeing bards making crazy outplays. I had a bard reactively ult to prevent a yone that was setting up his ultimate in the same time to where the yone then just flew over their heads and was in a bad spot. Like that requires like prediction. That's not just a oh God panicle. And this guy did it. It was incredible. Supports are fucking goaded all of a sudden. The other thing I've noticed going from silver and gold up to emerald, the egos have changed. There's egomaniacs in every ELO that is just a constant. Everyone thinks their God's gift to League of Legends and their team is the only thing holding them back. But there's a lot less of them now that just tantrum and outright troll and hard throw the game. [00:06:16] Speaker A: I think that a lot of the time too, like whenever you reach a certain threshold, as you said, using the gold to emerald like example is that people have a obviously have more of an understanding of the game whenever they got to that point. I'll give you a prime example. Whenever you do a gank on top and you kill the enemy top laner and the wave is in a bad spot as jungle you want to help your laner shove in the wave. But in gold you do that, your top laner is going to rage at you that you're taking their CS and it's like no, you don't understand. You're going to get frozen on and then I'm going to have to come back and help you. [00:06:53] Speaker B: Yep. [00:06:54] Speaker A: But, but in emerald it's like, okay, like take some of the cs, I don't give a shit. I get a good back and then I get to play the game again. It's just stuff like that is so huge because you know that person's like equal level to you in that. In that sense of like they're not going to get upset about you doing something that is correct in the game. [00:07:12] Speaker B: And that's the other big thing I've noticed is I'm having a Lot less experiences of what the fuck is this guy thinking on either side. Like I'm having a lot less of what the fuck is my enemy thinking and a lot less of what the fuck is my teammate thinking. It still happens. You still get the people that are just brain damaged and just seem to think that things that aren't possible are what you should be doing. You know the type of people who are like why didn't you follow? And it's like because I had a double stacked wave under my turret and if I follow him he turns around and kills me. Yep, those still exist. I promise that that has not changed. But there's a lot less of just people wandering around and dying in random places for no reason. Now they're wandering around and dying in random places for a clear reason. [00:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it's true. [00:08:01] Speaker C: I wanted to do this. I could not. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The prime example is like the higher you get the more contested like enemy camps are like not even like not even like the main objectives on the map. But if I know Raptors are respawning and I have my support moving on mid, I'll ping that I want the Raptors respawn and my mid has shoved. So that means that we're all going to be fighting over those Raptors Even though it's not something that you see in lower. Lower gameplay. [00:08:33] Speaker B: Yup. The one thing I was shocked has not changed is I've gone from like silver and gold up to Emerald. I'm 40. I am not a God gamer. Guys. I can still hand check these kids sometimes and I still get hand checked sometimes and it's still about a coin flip of whether or not either of us can hand check the other one versus. Is it just a relatively even in terms of like gameplay mechanics matchup. [00:09:02] Speaker C: There is something about how we played the game for 16 years means I have things so ingrained that I can outhand someone who is only mechanically intensive. Yeah. I've been doing this for so long I know what you're gonna do before you do it. That's where we're going with this. [00:09:22] Speaker B: That sometimes. But I also just mean like in the moment micro hands checking as well. Like I'm still micro hands checking people sometimes about as often as I was in the moment in in bottom of gold. Now that I'm in Emerald that part has not changed. Some of that. Some of that is that I've gotten better. That's why I was able to climb back to Emerald. But also some of that is just hands only get you so far Guys, Yes. [00:09:51] Speaker C: Unless you are insane with hands, then they get you very, very far. But like it's been pretty much proven false across the board that there's an age limit to play. A lot of people have been talking about you get three or four years out of a person and then they're done. In pro sport esports, the greatest player to ever live is going on what, 14 years now? 15. I think he started in 2013, so this would be 14. [00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And also he is literally 30 years [00:10:22] Speaker C: old and he plays so much more than, than any of us do. So his hands are getting way more use than ours are. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's faker to be clear is who we're talking about. [00:10:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:35] Speaker B: Like he's 30 and he's still hands checking 17 year olds. [00:10:39] Speaker C: He's still on the first place team in Korea and is the reason they're the first place team half the time? [00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah, actually literally about half the time. It's kind of wild. So yeah, that's, that's been my experience so far. I've only played 20 games in Emerald something around there. So like maybe I'll have more impressions as it goes but honestly, other than the supports being goaded and people in general being a little smarter about macro, it's the same shit. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it just gets to a certain point where like people, as you said, people have the knowledge and know things that are good versus bad. You know what I mean? So like if you're, if you're playing mid and you obviously see your jungle invading whenever you have a double stacked wave, as you're saying, like, you know, it's bad for your game to move, you know, in that scenario. So you're not going to do that. You're going to stay in collected because that's the correct decision that you have to make. Yep. But the lower you get, the more you're inclined to go and help that bad play. [00:11:44] Speaker C: So. So I have a question for you then here. [00:11:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:11:47] Speaker C: Because it's very popular in bronze, iron, gold, sometimes even silver. Games are long. [00:11:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:55] Speaker C: Has the game time consistently decreased? Have you as you've gone up as people supposedly know how to finish games more or are people drawing things out [00:12:03] Speaker B: now not meaningfully changed? I'm still getting a lot of games that are just blowouts one way or the other. A lot of games that are slogs for 30, 35 minutes and then a few that are around the 30 minutes that a game is supposed to be. I had a very frustrating one earlier today against the dumbest irelia I have ever seen who also hard carried the shit out of the game because Irelia is fucking broken and she's back to being my permaban because apparently in Emerald it doesn't fucking matter anymore. She's just an unstoppable force because she heals so much that even with heal cut you cannot kill her. Yeah, I'm still salty about that. This guy literally Turret dove and died level one to feed me the first kill. Then Turret dove me again and died again at level six. He had five deaths in six minutes and he hard carried the entire game because Irelia has so much healing no one could kill him. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I think games wise like I would say like 1 in every 10 goes to like an Elder for me like something like that. It's not out. Going to Elder is like pretty rare I would say. [00:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:15] Speaker A: I think going to like 4th Drake is pretty common but Elder is like [00:13:19] Speaker C: not super common because I know from iron to silver goldish game time starts to decrease. Most Iron games are longer than Most silver games etc. Etc. [00:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But yeah Tldr. I'm really mad they buffed Irelia. She did not need the buff and now she's back on my perma van list and I'm letting Graves through. I'm not happy about that either. But he's less can be stopped by. No, he's more popular but he can be stopped by a team that is coordinated to try to stop him. She apparently can't. We literally had Lulu hard ccing him. I was malphite hard ccing this Irelia did not matter. We literally could not kill him fast enough. He would kill two to three people before he died. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Yeah. The higher you get, the more common Graves Qiyana stuff like that that comes. [00:14:02] Speaker C: So. Yep. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I. I got very lucky. I went against a Kiana that hand checked the shit out of me earlier today. But she had a rage quitter so we won the game anyway. [00:14:15] Speaker A: Nice. [00:14:17] Speaker B: I. I got bailed the fuck out because I was gigagapped. [00:14:22] Speaker A: That's funny. [00:14:23] Speaker B: Anyway, so Witch you you've brought us a topic. [00:14:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:27] Speaker B: Something you've noticed is a trend in every bracket whether we're talking bronze, silver, gold, all the way up through diamond. Because you've been in diamond, right? [00:14:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm in diamond now so. So yeah. [00:14:40] Speaker B: What is this trend you've noticed and how should people think about it and play around it? [00:14:45] Speaker A: So whenever you're going to climb and you're at the threshold of where you're jumping up so it's like Silver one, Gold one, stuff like that. Whenever you get to the like past 50 LP mark, you'll get games where you're having people that are jumping in between those ranks. So in between Gold one and in between Plat one and you know, continuing up the rank. And whenever you're doing that you get people that are a lot more irritable because people are jumping back and forth and those are the types of games that are there. And people know that you're trying to rank up because you're usually ranked up against people that are of the or they try to of the same rank and stuff like that. So you'll get lobbies where you get people intentionally griefing whenever they're picking their champion. So on my grind to diamond, I think one of my games going up to it, I had a like Jarvan for Ad carry and like a Warwick support or something like that. Inevitably I was playing my game in my win condition to try to win the game. But it's pretty hard with a pretty active bot lane that's not meant to be there. [00:15:56] Speaker B: I have also noticed this trend however, in my experience the like super funky bot lanes like that have absolutely giga crushed because their opponents have no idea how to respond to them. And I've said this before on this podcast, I don't know why in my ranked game specifically ADCs are the dumbest people on the planet. [00:16:19] Speaker A: But yeah, I think we could agree that it's a little bit troll. Oh yeah, I understand understandably that people don't understand how to play against it because normally they don't. But you just have to go through it mentally where you're going to no matter what, no matter what rank, you're going to experience that. I went through it whenever I was going from plat to emerald and emerald to diamond and basically even whenever you're above the threshold, Whenever you are Emerald 40250LP, you'll get the same lobbies as well because those people are still there. So just something to keep in mind, [00:16:57] Speaker B: and I think you've touched on the exact reason it happens, is because that is the threshold where people are changing ranks. You're going to get people who just ranked up and they're like, oh, I'm gold now, I'm not silver. You're silver, you're a scrub. And they have super fucking egos. And you're going to get the people who just got knocked out of gold back into silver and they're like, oh, I don't belong here. Fuck this game. Fuck everyone. My team is holding me back and both of those people are getting put in every single lobby in that bracket. And it's true in every one and every four of every division. [00:17:34] Speaker C: It's also common enough, I think, that you can't just dodge that game when you see it. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Yep. No, you have. You have to just play them to the best of your ability because you're good. You would lose too much LP if you're dodging constantly and also be unable to play the game. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. You just sparked a memory in my brain whenever there was like the conditional games where you had to play three games or whatever to rank up between. Those were a bit tough. Like. Like those were like super tough. [00:18:02] Speaker B: I'm so glad that is gone. Because there were literally people who would look up every lobby and if they had people in a series, throw the game to make sure that the person in the series couldn't promote. Because fuck you. [00:18:13] Speaker C: I had that happen three times in a row as I got to my. Oh, you're in your promotion part of the game. One on one, better get there. Nope. Fuck off. God damn you. [00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:18:25] Speaker A: So no matter what, you're still going to experience that. But I think that as long as you have a streamlined gameplay and you are actively playing towards your win condition that you identified in the game, whether that's, you know, if you're mid and you need to make sure you're playing control mage, you need to just make sure that you get to the mid to late game and not troll. Just continue playing the way that you normally would play and see how the game plays out. That's my suggestion towards like actually playing in these lobbies. You don't want to actively make it worse for you and just kind of go into it where it's just one game refresh, Go into the next one afterwards. If you win, great. If you lose, get the next one type deal. [00:19:04] Speaker B: And also when you go into those lobbies where people are already at each other's throats, like bickering in chat, dodge that. [00:19:11] Speaker C: If they're. If they're bickering in chat, that's the time to dodge. Yeah. If it's not that. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Because you'll see those a lot too. I saw those in Gold four. I saw those in Gold one. I saw those in Plat four. I saw those in Plat one. I saw those in Emerald four. [00:19:24] Speaker C: I think my only advice here, because it's been a long time since I've done this actively has been if you're going into those games and people are doing the the trolley shit. Ignore your counter in comparison. Play your strongest champion. Play whatever you have that you feel can make the most impact on the game because you don't know if that's going to be a full troll or if that's going to be a spontaneous super carry. [00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. So. All right. [00:19:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:48] Speaker B: So Mike, we got one more topic to talk about and this is one you can maybe chime in a bit more on. Of course, we've been asked before if it's ever worth getting some one on one coaching to try to improve your game. And we want to briefly touch on the pros and cons of one on one coaching. What resources are available to you besides this podcast? And is it ever worth paying for someone to coach you to get better at League of Legends? [00:20:15] Speaker C: So I'm going to actually start with that, that last portion first. If you do not have a large amount of expendable income. No, don't waste your money on coaching because if you're here with us talking, you're not playing the game to a degree that you that a coach is going to come in and make you suddenly phenomenal. It's not worth it to spend money at that point unless you have a good amount of expendable income. And then you can be like, hey, I just want to, I just want to feel like I'm good at the game, I enjoy it, I want to feel like I'm good at it. And if you've got the money to spend, then feel free. That's my first point there backing up now resources available to you. So obviously there is a paid coaching services. These are a thing you'll also find like and this is the most common way that I see things. There are websites and there are YouTube channels and then there are some discord servers that are also a do one on one things together with people. Those are usually through like Patreon or something and you'll have access to them through that. I would say the first thing you should do for before you even attempt to look at coaching is just watch more games, find pro games, find people that you think are good at something that you want to be good at. [00:21:37] Speaker B: And then after watching those games, watch your own replays so you can see what are you doing different than the good players you're trying to learn from. [00:21:46] Speaker C: Yes, the major thing I think is going to be, there's going to be. If you are a generalist like Jax and I, you need to be watching a Bunch of different things. And I would actually heavily suggest watching more pro because you see a lot more things that you can utilize in your play in pro, even if you can't use all of it. [00:22:10] Speaker B: But also if your goal is to go up in rank, don't be a generalist. Yes, I definitely made the thing made my life much harder than it needed to be by playing such a wide variety of champions. I would have been emerald four or five months ago if I just stuck to two champions. [00:22:27] Speaker C: Seriously? Yeah. Next thing is obviously once you've determined how you want what you want to do what you want out of this, do you just want to get a little bit better? Do you want to climb? That's that's like the thing you need to do. Determine what you want out of it. Do I want to raise a rank or two? Do I want to just be good at the game? Do I want to make ranked my main form of of play? Each of these different things is going to determine what you want out of coaching. If your only goal is just get better, you probably don't need to pay for coaching services. You can get better through watching play and then just playing more games. But playing with and I would say [00:23:05] Speaker A: yeah, and I would say too like, if you're looking for specific like champions, like actively search for players that play those champions to actually view them. You know what I mean? There's lots of one tricks out there. There's lots of different variety of players that stream that you can watch to see what they do in lane in the jungle, what they do as support etc etc. Where you can actually learn to play the game in a certain way with those champions. [00:23:34] Speaker C: If you're not looking at champions specifically, almost every major pro player streams solo queue. Find someone that does the position that you play. Their solo queue games are not like their pro games. They're a lot more like solo queue games. So you'll learn a lot more out of their streams than you will out of professional games. [00:23:52] Speaker B: I remember I was doing a watch party with the Fnatic fan in our discord on one of Fnatic's games. So for those who don't know, Fnatic's mid laner is number one on EU as solo queue. Like he is rank one and it's not close. Fnatic did not make playoffs. Yeah, and he looked like he was a significant part of it. But the dude is amazing at solo queue. So if you were trying to learn how to play high elo solo queue in mid lane, he'd be a good person to watch. Maybe don't emulate what he does in actual pro games. [00:24:27] Speaker C: Yeah. The next thing that I actually want to talk about is there are a couple of generalist streamers that I just think are good people to follow because of their attitude towards the game and things that they will do with with what they do when streaming. Because some people just stream and they talk about stream of consciousness and there are others who talk about what they're doing, why they're doing it. My specific person I really like a person named Hussy. He is a relative generalist. He plays a lot of things in a lot of different positions, mostly top and mid last time I checked. But he's bounced around and he talks about why he does the things he does and that is one of the greatest resources you can get in learning to play the game. Why am I doing these things that I'm doing? These are the reasons I'm doing it. These are one things that you can implement even if you can't do it to the same degree I can. [00:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:15] Speaker C: As much as I don't think most people should follow Baws, he does actually say why he's doing things he does. [00:25:25] Speaker A: That's fun to watch. [00:25:26] Speaker B: I was gonna say if you're looking for top lane specifically, I think a better choice than Pause, who's also kind of a meme lord in the same way that Baws is, but is really good about talking through like why what he's going to do is going to work and everything. Eloise is actually like really, really verbally knowledgeable. Like he talks through his knowledge every time he plays and that's the kind of streamers you want to find. The the what it comes down to for me for coaching is I agree with Mike on unless you are at the point where you have so much expendable money that you don't care anymore about the money you should not be paying for coaching. But also is your League of Legends rank your identity? Would getting better at League of Legends help you in life in some way? Because unless you're an aspiring pro player or an up and coming streamer who is finding some success already and want to get to hire ELO to broaden your stream success, I don't think going up in rank in League of Legends is going to change your life in any way shape or form, I am literally the host of a podcast about getting better at League of Legends. I just attained a new rank and I am telling you getting to a rank is not going to change Your life, it'll make you feel better about yourself. You can feel proud, you can feel fulfilled, but you're going to feel just as proud and fulfilled if you got there on your own. Probably more so than if you had to pay someone to help you get there. [00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah, as someone who like last month hit Diamond, I thought I'd feel more genuinely when I hit it, but it was like something that I aspired to do for like a really long time and I got it and I'm like, that's kind of a relief off my shoulders, you know what I mean? But it wasn't something that like I needed to do, you know what I mean? It's just something that I aspired to do. So. [00:27:16] Speaker C: So I do have one YouTube channel that I think I recommend because they have a paid service, but you do not need to pay them to learn from them because their YouTube videos are comprehensive. They talk about things, they talk about why things are things. I would not always trust specific things like tier lists, because you don't always need tier lists, but they do ad carry guides, climb guides, tier lists, etc. How to do solo carrying, how to play your certain patch places. I like skill capped. They take people who are well knowledgeable through the game, challenger, etc. And they're the ones who talk about it and they, they do it well. If you're just going to do something, no payment. Their YouTube videos are just fine to learn things. They are. Their shorts content is fantastic to get solid, quick little interesting things like how the hell to do the Caitlyn combo to do slightly more damage. They have things like that in there. Other than that, I think really much. You don't need to go into the paid version for that. If you have that kind of money, that's when you want to maybe do coaching. If you don't want to do any of those options, you just want to hang out with people, you just want to learn with friends is the last kind of option. Find someone who you know, plays the game well and talk with them, play with them. A lot of times people have fun teaching people they're playing with. [00:28:41] Speaker B: Join our discord. [00:28:43] Speaker C: Play games with us. We're happy to teach things. [00:28:46] Speaker B: No, but in all seriousness, if you're not at fuck you money kind of levels, spend your money on things that'll make you happy. Even if that, even if that thing is buying a new skin in League of Legends, that's a better use of your money than coaching. [00:28:57] Speaker C: Yeah, most of the time. [00:28:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. [00:29:00] Speaker B: All right, witch You've got a trinket tip for us this week. What is it? [00:29:04] Speaker A: Yes. So I know we've talked about certain trinket tips whenever it comes to like mapping, like your award thing, for some reason it's not mapped in the game [00:29:17] Speaker B: for whatever the vision ward is placed ping. [00:29:22] Speaker A: Yes. But there's other settings within the game that are there that you can experiment. Just go into practice tool and see what works for you. For example, I have my warding trinket instead of on my keyboards on the side of my mouse so that it's easier for me to drop words. You never know quality of life things that you can do to make your game a little bit better. I have my F keys because I play jungle to check people on the map. I have them mapped to different keys that it's easier for me to just quickly check my how my lanes are doing, how the other, you know, things are doing. Some of my stuff is still the same, like space bars, like to bring my camera back to my main character. Stuff like that. But, you know, just experiment. Maybe you can change your settings so that you don't drop frames and like this and that. Like, you know what I mean? Just go in practice tools and. Yeah. See what works for you. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. Even just changing the regular binds, like, I forget. I think it's control and the numbers is the default bind for leveling up. [00:30:25] Speaker A: Yep. [00:30:26] Speaker B: I changed mine to ZXCV because I can just press those and move my hand back to where it should be instantly without having to move the rest of my hand. And that works great for me. Should you change your binds to that? Maybe, maybe not. But you want to be thinking about your binds in that way. [00:30:43] Speaker A: I still use control. So, like, it just really depends on your preference. Right. So makes sense. [00:30:47] Speaker C: The one I think you should if [00:30:48] Speaker A: you want to quickly level your ulti. It's good. [00:30:50] Speaker C: The one I think you really should pay attention to is if you play a lot of games that consistently use your numbers 1, 2, 3, 4. Consider moving QWER up there. If you're so much more used to doing things that do 1, 2, 3, 4. Switch them up there. That way you have your consistent memory in a spot that you use them more often. [00:31:08] Speaker B: All right, so let's get to our listener question for this week. This is. This was sent in by Reigns. Reminder, guys, you can send your own questions to theforwardspodcastmail.com so we can answer them on the podcast. So Reigns writes all about lock versus Echo versus Diana. Their playstyles are Similar. But why would I choose one over the other in Mid lane? I ask this as a Silver Echo Main Echo versus Diana. Their builds are the same. Their runes are the same. So I suppose it'd be matchups. Why would I subvert those two for Locke? So first of all, I'm gonna push back. I don't think their builds are the same at all. One of their builds is the same. So Diana in mid lane you can build pure Assassin. And sometimes that's correct. You should not be building the same Assassin items that Echo is though. Or you can build Bruiser. Bruiser is going to be going like Dusk and Dawn Riftmaker, that kind of stuff. [00:32:07] Speaker C: If you use her as like this is one of your main things. She's probably of those three the best counter into something like Galio because she builds into a Tanky scenario significantly better than both Ekko and Lockwood. So you can build her as a Tank to counter something like a Galio much better than the other two of those three, Diana is the most flexible in her build. [00:32:31] Speaker B: Yes. The reason I say you shouldn't necessarily be building the same. Diana has two Assassin builds. One is the same as Echo, which is Lich Bane into Shadowflame into Deathcap type builds. But she can also just rush Storm Surge. Echo should never be doing that. Lich Bane is always better on Echo. And that's I think the biggest like front loaded difference for even just the Assassin builds. Even if we disregard the fact that she has build variety. Echo is only building Assassin if you're, if you're not building him Assassin Mage, you're doing Echo wrong because he has the get out of jail free on his ult. He does not have a reason to ever build anything else. [00:33:14] Speaker C: There have been times when Tank Ekko was okay that, that, that they have taken that away from him. [00:33:19] Speaker A: That's not a thing anymore. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad. The thing that you, you brought up where it says I suppose it'd be matchups like Echo versus Diana, like in picking wise, you gotta think about it. Both Echo and Locker a lot more slippery than Diana whenever it comes to their count. Like their disengage. Whenever they actually able to do that. Whenever you go in as Diana, you're kind of locked into I'm going forward and I'm going to fight. And this is the difference in build. That's like why it's kind of important to differentiate between the two. Because if you're tanky you can do a little bit more. You can stay kind of more involved in the fight. But if you're a Bursty Diana and you don't get a lead in the game, the game is going to be a little bit more difficult because whenever you go in, you're kind of. You're kind of just in. Whenever you're playing Echo and lock, you can Q3 on lockdown, lock, get your E reset and like get it again. And then with Ekko, you have your ulti to leave. So if you're playing in a game where it's a little bit more scary to like full send and engage and it's going to be hard for you and you need to be able to have that mobility to like disengage and like, stuff like that. I personally like the other two champs a little bit more for that scenario at least. [00:34:30] Speaker C: The other thing I think is of those three, they each have a sort of degree of telegraphing when they're going in. You pretty much know when Echo's going in and when Locke are going in by what they're doing a second or two beforehand. Lock doesn't I in then do his Qs. He goes Q, Q, Q, E pretty much always. So you have an idea. When a Lock is going in, Ekko almost always will either throw his W out or throw a Q out first because he, he wants to get that initial hit either of the stun to get the shield going or the Q so that he has increased burst. Diana can throw Q and E almost simultaneously. She can be in on top of you before you notice that her Q is out. [00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah, and also her impossible to fucking dodge, whereas the others have easy to dodge skill shots for sure. [00:35:25] Speaker A: Also there's like differentiating things where Diana's burst is like just front loaded and like does a lot of damage. Where Echo is like based on the opponent's like, HP value. Right. So if you're lower, Echo is going to have more kill threat on you versus Diana's just going to have kill threat on you pretty well throughout because her base damages are higher. So. Yeah. [00:35:46] Speaker C: But yes, I think of the three actually, matchups are huge for them. Lock has the most narrow matchup in comparison to the other two because he's the squishiest of the three. Ekko has the same time he's able [00:35:59] Speaker B: to cheat his durability the most. [00:36:02] Speaker C: Ekko has the easiest get out of jail free card in the fucking game. His ult is disgustingly good. He can back and then ult back without a TP getting anything he wants and then just be back on the field. Immediately. It's so powerful. When you learn Echo in the correct manners. [00:36:21] Speaker A: Yeah, Echo's Ult is, like, extreme. Like, I would say, it's like, if you know how to use Echo alt in a very good way, it's really good. But it's also very forgiving, Ulti. You know what I mean? Like, it's where, like, if, you know you mess up, you can go, go, oh. Oh, fuck. Push the button, back out for a second, and then reevaluate what you need to do in the team fight. Obviously, you don't want to use it that way every single time, but there'll be instances where you'll be using it that way. [00:36:45] Speaker C: So I think I'd say that Ekko has both the lowest skill floor and the highest skill ceiling of the three is the easiest to pick up, but he can do the most insane things of them. [00:36:56] Speaker B: Yep. [00:36:58] Speaker C: Diana. Diana being the most versatile is a really big thing there. She has the option, even within game, even within the same runes and masteries of playing to what you are facing and the situation based on game state. If you have a winning matchup that you've lost because the other person is just that good, you could change on a dime. Okay, I cannot be the front burst. Go in. Maybe I need to be a bruiser right now. Maybe I need to be a tank right now. She has those options. And Lock. Lock. Lock has the most straightforward thought process of them all. He's going to kill a Squishy. And he probably has the most disgusting burst of the three of them. So he has the power to go kill the Squishy the easiest. [00:37:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:44] Speaker A: It's also, like, super deceiving because, like, you. You eat the cues sometimes, and you're like, oh, that didn't deal that much. And then he E's on your forehead, and you die. Almost like, so. Just something to keep in mind. [00:37:56] Speaker B: So for me, the. The biggest one is just Lock is the least understood by your opponents because he's new. If you're. If you can get the hang of him, you have just a huge edge. Especially you said. You said you're in silver. Especially in silver. Like, if you understand Locke's power spikes, it is highly likely your opponent does not have that same level of understanding. That is less true for both Diana and Ekko simply because they've been around for years. It is much more likely that your opponent has seen them enough to really understand them, even if they're not playing themselves. [00:38:32] Speaker C: So normally, like, I see these three, and I go, oh, hey, these are A the power triangle of the assassin of the like Fire Emblem type. They're gonna kill each other and there's gonna. No, they're not. Both of them demolish Lock completely. Lock is the squishy portion here. He is the easiest to kill of them all. And both of them are very good into Lock. [00:38:55] Speaker B: So that's the other thing I wanted to say is on that note, if you are against Lock, bring Ignite. You must bring Ignite. He is the most hard countered by Ignite of all mid laners. [00:39:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:09] Speaker B: Actually because it prevents him from getting the full value out of his W. The best time to play Lock is into someone like a Lux or something that is not going to be taking ignite. [00:39:19] Speaker C: Yeah. The mages that bring teleport, he's the best into them. [00:39:22] Speaker B: He crushes teleport mages pretty much universally. [00:39:27] Speaker C: The one I think you should not take Lock into is Syndra because she can just not be engaged on by you. So that. That if you're. If you want to play Lock, I'd say your ban should probably be Syndra because she's getting real popular. [00:39:40] Speaker A: Yeah, Syndra is really strong. [00:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah, she is. [00:39:42] Speaker A: If you don't. It is a skill matchup for sure. But I think that Syndra has the easier side of it for sure. [00:39:49] Speaker B: Of course, the easy answer is just don't play any of these champions. Go top Lane and play Lucian. Matchups don't matter. You just destroy the Nexus in like five minutes. [00:39:59] Speaker C: I mean, Lucian is kind of like Locke. Not in the slightest. [00:40:03] Speaker B: They both start only in the sense that they're like hunter type champions in terms of their, like, style. [00:40:11] Speaker C: They both think they're both cool. [00:40:14] Speaker B: They are very cool. [00:40:15] Speaker A: They both are cool. There you go. All right. There you go. [00:40:18] Speaker B: We're naming the episode that they're both Cool. [00:40:22] Speaker C: All right. [00:40:24] Speaker B: All right, guys. This has been episode 547 of the Four Wards podcast. I've been Jack Selman from Micah Many Names 4 Witch at Black Mass. Have a great night. [00:40:35] Speaker C: Good night everybody. [00:40:36] 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 fourwards podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.