The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 549: Unseen Threats

[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 Podcast here to help you move forward in league. Hello and welcome to episode 549 of the Four Words podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Sohman and I've got with me two other words to help you move forward in League of Legends. We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:51] Speaker B: I'm slightly stuffy, but I'm here. [00:00:53] Speaker A: And we've got Pillow Pat. [00:00:55] Speaker C: Hi, I am here [00:00:58] Speaker A: 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 having a lot of mayhem going on lately in the Discord Bunch of norms. It's a lot of fun. Also, lots of other gaming talk going on too. It's that time of year where other games are all releasing in the next like two months. So join the Discord so you can talk to us about them. I also want to give a shoutout to our patrons, Codex Ninja, Pillow Pet, Labana, Uncle ChrisCo and Scipius Esquire for supporting us at the Shoutout tier. Thank you guys. 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 and $10 a month gets you that same exclusive feed. And we'll shout your name out during the intro of every episode. 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. I'm realizing just now I forgot to plug our twitches. I can be found at Twitch TV Jacksellman Mike can be found at Twitch TV mikeofmanynames and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch TV. Pillowpet when work isn't crushing him. [00:02:12] Speaker C: Eventually, maybe when I get in the new house. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, listeners, you guys finally answered the call. Thank you. We got questions. We'll still need more. These ones will last us maybe two weeks. So write in to theforwardspodcastmail.com with your questions you want answered on the show or just drop them in the question submission channel of the Discord. But I'd prefer you email them if that's okay with you. All Right guys, since we weren't able to do an episode last week, we got a patch week again. Patch 2619 is out, so it's another patch episode at the top. I just wanted to mention Riot had previously said we would be getting the new Team Voice feature, at least in North America. Next patch in about a week and a half from when you're hearing this to chat with the randoms in your game on voice, they are postponing it. We don't know why. We don't know what they found that's wrong. We don't know when it's going to be available. I am very bummed about this. They've specifically they mentioned that the feature will have voice changers so you won't have to sound like yourself if you want to be a little bit more anonymous. I'm guessing they probably ran into some sort of Showstopper bug with that, but we don't know. So when they tell us it's coming out, we'll talk about it because that's a feature I'm very excited for. Lets talk about the actual patch changes though. I'm gonna kick it off with one that looks way more intimidating and complicated than it actually is. Aphelios got some buffs because he is apparently not doing that great, despite the meta being something that should be where he is doing great right now. All of Exactly. So all of his guns got some kind of buff and it's generally thematic to whatever the gun is. So his sniper gun got a little bit of bonus damage on the Q. His lifesteal gun got a little bit increased healing. His rootin slow gun got a slightly less decay on the slow so it slows for more on average. His flame gun got a reduced cooldown on the Q and his Shuriken chakram gun, the weird melee ranged gun that he has, does a little bit more damage. It's just a little bit better in every one of his guns in a thematic to that gun way. And that's why I say it's not actually that complicated of a buff. I like this a lot more than giving him 2 AD. [00:04:49] Speaker B: The final one. The Crescendum buff also has like this weird component where he has decaying damage the more and more he has. So that got like stretched out a little bit more so it decays even less on attacks. [00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, but again it's really just it does a little bit more damage than it did before in all cases. [00:05:07] Speaker B: If if you're good, you can maximize it because not everyone is good with it. [00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah. This is why red white, don't fight is the. The mantra when you're playing against an Aphelios. Because the damage he can do in White Gun if you're close to him is psychotic. So yeah, Aphelios little bit better. Still don't think most people should be picking him up and playing him because I. Aphelios is weird. He has a high skill floor, but I actually feel like his ceiling isn't all that high. It's just the floor is really high. [00:05:39] Speaker B: The ceiling used to be incredibly high. And it's got. [00:05:43] Speaker A: They dumbed him down. [00:05:44] Speaker B: It's gotten a lot easier after that. [00:05:46] Speaker A: So yeah, Felios a little better if he's fun to you play a Felios. I think he's good numerically now. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Agreed. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Mike. Speaking of good numerically, pick one. [00:05:58] Speaker B: So I think we're gonna go alphabetically with these. Which starts me off with the one that I'm most annoyed with. [00:06:06] Speaker A: Yep. [00:06:07] Speaker B: So you may have heard me say multiple times. I'm really annoyed with how they have changed Aurora as a champion. And fundamentally half of this buff makes that worse. And the other half is more to the thing that Aurora should be doing. So I like one half and really dislike the other. The half I dislike, she's just getting raw 10 base damage across the board on her E. This is bad being [00:06:37] Speaker A: the like the weird laser that sends her backwards. Right? [00:06:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's really strong. Like 70 base which is now 80 base plus AP ratio. And it's not a bad AP ratio. This is the hardest hitting AP ratio outside of her ult. She hits hard if she throws QE and they both hit like I'm. I'm not happy with this buff. The other buff. However, the duration increase to the early ranks on Between Worlds. That's just a good thing. Aurora should be allowed to do bouncy Aurora things. That's what she's designed for. That's what's most fun about her. Let her bounce around more and you can do more bounce. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Incidentally, this also means she's trapped in her own circle for longer. [00:07:27] Speaker B: She can cancel it. [00:07:28] Speaker C: Yes. [00:07:30] Speaker A: When you're good enough to realize you need to do that. How many times have you seen people jarvan ult and trap themselves in a bad spot and not cancel it? [00:07:39] Speaker B: Fair. [00:07:40] Speaker A: Many players are not good at recognizing when they should be cancelling the effect of a thing. It lasting longer is going to get some Aurora players killed. [00:07:48] Speaker B: It is going to kill some Aurora players. This ability. [00:07:51] Speaker A: That's okay. [00:07:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:52] Speaker B: This ability. I Dislike the new version of it. I think it was just a better thing. In its original version, it had a lot more power and a lot more power. Being able to lock everybody inside of it. Now having her just do a nice bounce and have it be a big nuke. I think it's just unhealthy for the game. But the bounce part is. I think it's just fine. And that's. She's always been able to do that. [00:08:14] Speaker C: I always liked the idea of when it created an arena. I like the first version. [00:08:18] Speaker B: It was the best version. [00:08:21] Speaker A: I mean, I think we're unanimous on this podcast of preferring the launch version of Aurora, where she was kind of like an AP bruiser, intended to have sustained fights with you and win those sustained fights. And she would trap you when it was time for her to go for the kill kind of thing. [00:08:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And it made some really cool moments. We're having a brawl down in Baron Pit. No one escapes. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, well. That version of Aurora seems to be dead and gone. [00:08:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:51] Speaker A: Pillow. Tell us about a champion we wish was dead and gone right now. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Which one? [00:08:56] Speaker C: I'm going after the dog. The dog. Got some more nerfs. Small Nerfs. I played him since these nerves didn't really notice it. His bonk, his Q siphoning strikes. Bonus damage got reduced by 10 at all ranks. That's it. [00:09:17] Speaker A: I mean, literally, three last hits with your Q and you're back to where you were. [00:09:21] Speaker C: I mean, essentially, like, this lowers his healing, but not by much. Like it's not. This isn't gonna do much. I mean, it's his first max. You get it very quickly. You're not going to notice 10 damage by the time you have 200 stacks before you even get this maxed out. [00:09:39] Speaker B: Lowering the base damage on a stacking ability is idiotic. I think. I think that that has no relevance whatsoever. And how he plays. [00:09:49] Speaker C: You got to what now? You got to buy two extra minions to make up for this. Like, it makes it. [00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah, literally. One cannon minion or three other minions and you're caught up. [00:10:00] Speaker B: If they removed the bonus damage entirely and just made it entirely stack damage, that would have an impact. [00:10:05] Speaker A: Yeah, but then he wouldn't max it first. And that's not what they want. [00:10:08] Speaker B: Exactly. Unless it had cooldown production, which I think it still does. [00:10:12] Speaker C: True. Does it? It does, but I mean, it's small. It's not meaningful. It's just. [00:10:19] Speaker A: They should also change the stack ratio early. [00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Make it a scaling ratio. [00:10:25] Speaker A: That would be enough. If he had to get to Level 9 before his Q was doing full damage from stacks. You would have more ability to like do enough damage to push him out early. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Nasus being an unkillable monster by 11, I think is just fine. Having him be in a point where you can't push him out of lane. Once you. You hit that one stage, he needs to be 1v2. That's perfectly acceptable. His laning should be garbage because of it. [00:10:49] Speaker A: Yeah, his laning should be Kayle Tier where like he can kill you if you fuck up, but. But only if you fuck up. Speaking of a laner who can kill you if you fuck up. Volibear got some weird changes in this patch. The first thing they changed is they reverted the AP attack speed ratio on his passive. It's back to 4% per 100 AP per stack, which is cool. I think that's more of a. Oh, we've tuned down Dusk and Dawn and it's not OP anymore. So we can revert this kind of change. And then the interesting one is they made it so that the on hit damage on his passive scales. With your bonus ad. I already thought that the Spear of Shojin was potentially good on Volibear. I think it's actually just possibly this might unbind him from Flicker Blade. [00:11:47] Speaker B: It could like actual extra damage. Yeah. [00:11:51] Speaker A: With the freedom to build the AD Bruiser items, he can get a lot more ability haste really fast to where the value of Flicker Blade plummets. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Well, that plus the Shojin's innate benefit to your cooldowns. Yeah, well, that's what I mean. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Because Shojin is like 25 ability haste on your basic abilities. And then it's also got shitloads of health and ad. And it makes your abilities do more damage. Like Shojin does it all. All of that is now good for Volibear. So I haven't played with it yet, but I'm going to experiment with going Dusk and Dawn. Shojin Volibear. [00:12:28] Speaker B: How low can his cooldowns get? [00:12:30] Speaker A: Pretty low. Low enough that Flicker Blade doesn't do [00:12:33] Speaker B: anything low enough that T Force might actually be quite useful. [00:12:37] Speaker A: That's kind of where I'm going with that is I don't think T Force is going to overcome Dusk and Dawn. Just especially not with this change. Meaning that he actually gets more on [00:12:49] Speaker B: hit damage, doing both at the same time. Yeah. [00:12:52] Speaker A: Splash a little bit to the point where he does the damage better. But the ad, the AD Bruiser items, there is so much AD Bruiser ability haste itemization available. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Think of him with the black cleaver. [00:13:10] Speaker A: Right. He can build black cleaver. [00:13:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:13] Speaker A: It's not going to benefit his damage as much as other champions, but his W, his big burst chunky damage is physical. I'm just saying. And remember, the W already has an AD ratio where if you bite them multiple times, the follow up empowered bites do more damage the more AD you have. Not just like the. The ad ratio on the damage, but it has a multiplier on the multiplier. If you have 200 bonus ad, your empowered bites do double damage. Volibear with some ad I think is potentially going to be really good. You could also see like heart steel with a. Whatever the. The ad HP item is. [00:13:56] Speaker C: I can't remember Overlord. [00:13:58] Speaker A: Overlord's bloodmail. There we go. I could see Overlord's bloodmail being a good capstone on like heartsteel Volibear. Now I'm excited to play this in Mayhem where you get ridiculous health totals sometimes and build an overlord's bloodmail and have like a 580 VolvoBear and suddenly just explode people. That's going to be fun. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it is. [00:14:19] Speaker A: This also might give some extra value to Statikk Shiv, which has always been a like cheesy volibear items. Shiv is really funny, but I don't think it's very good most of the time. It's better with this. I'm just saying. [00:14:33] Speaker C: All right, Mike, pull crit Volibear coming in. [00:14:36] Speaker A: I've played it. It's not very good, but I've played it. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Okay, so in keeping with our theme, we're now talking about some more little buffs. Well then we're heading into the jungle and we're gonna stay there. The first of the two is someone you probably haven't seen in a while. And I think I haven't played her in a while outside of Arams as well. [00:14:56] Speaker A: But I've seen her, but not in the jungle. [00:14:59] Speaker B: I might just. Yeah, you're right. She was a support for a little bit. I might just bring her back out. I think Elise got a sneakily powerful buff here. It sounds much weaker than I think you're going to initially expect. Her passive magic damage on hit got two more at all ranks and then her W bonus attack Speed went up 10% across the board. That attack speed is massive because of how her spiders work. The passive bonus magic damage, if I'm remembering this correctly, is also kind of nutty for her because of how her spiders work. And this means not only will she have an excellent clear. She will have a very strong burst. Great dive like. She may be the best diving champion in the game. [00:15:49] Speaker A: So it is important to note this is only her own auto attack damage. Spiderling's auto attack did not get changed but the attack speed does benefit them. [00:15:58] Speaker B: Those two combined is huge. The two, the two extra minor damage per head. It's. It's beneficial because of how often she attacks in spider form. [00:16:07] Speaker A: It's the same thing as like when you give 2 AD to a base jungler. [00:16:11] Speaker B: And however usually most junglers camps have more armor than they do Mr. So more magic damage is actually better than more AD. And then the attack speed is just straight awesome and it's a hefty fucking amount of attack speed. Like you end up with 130% bonus attack speed on this. That's one of the best day rides in the game. I don't, I don't think her extra on hit damage is strong enough that she would want a dusk and dawn. [00:16:36] Speaker A: No. [00:16:36] Speaker B: She's a burst champion through and through. [00:16:39] Speaker A: There's a reason you've never seen her building gnashers even though like she does have a huge attack speed steroid. [00:16:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think I do want this [00:16:50] Speaker A: makes me want to play in Mayhem. A build where I build all attack speed and on hit type, item type augments and items. Get. [00:16:59] Speaker B: Oh, get Zealot. [00:17:00] Speaker A: Get. Yeah. Something like Zealot. Get Nashor's. Get Terminus. [00:17:05] Speaker B: Oh, terminus. Yeah. [00:17:06] Speaker A: And just auto attack people to death on Elise and Mayhem. That sounds hilarious. I'm gonna have to try that at some point. [00:17:12] Speaker B: Get a gunblade and double usage. But yeah, no, I think you'll start seeing some Elise's especially as the top lane meta is changing a little bit again. And she is the queen of top dives. She's the queen of them. [00:17:25] Speaker A: Yep. Literally the best jungler in the game at diving turrets. There's several others who can go untargetable. None of them can do it as perfectly as she can because she can literally go untargetable when with the killshot in the air and then land outside of turret range. [00:17:41] Speaker B: The range is massive on it. She has a ranged stun. So like the sheer utility of the rest of her kit plus the dive power. I'm hoping we see some Elise soon. [00:17:55] Speaker A: Fair enough. All right, Pillow. We're all hoping we don't see more of the darkened blade. What's happening with Aatrox? [00:18:03] Speaker C: All right, so Aatrox is getting two buffs. He's getting cooldown reduction on his infernal change, which is his W, it's the thing he cast out. Put like a triangle around you. If you don't escape, it pulls you back to the center. So it was cooldown was 20 scaling down to 12, and now it's 18 scar scaling and remaining 2 at 12. At max rank, it's 2 seconds on the first rank. What is that, a second and a half? And then etc. Down to 12 seconds. This is pretty big because this is his one point wonder. So he gets two seconds back now at his first rank. The big change here, which I think is unnecessary, is his E is getting a buff to its passive. So if you didn't know, his E, which is his dash, has a health heal range ratio passive on it. And it was 1.1% per 100 bonus health. And now it's going up to 1.3% per 100 bonus health. [00:19:12] Speaker A: This is the reason that as he hits the point where he does a shitload of damage, he can heal like a thousand health on a Q3. And they just buffed the ratio on that healing. [00:19:22] Speaker C: Yeah, by not a small number either. Like, so this is. It was at 1.1% and now it's going up to 1.3. I mean, it's essentially getting a 20 buff close to. [00:19:33] Speaker B: I mean, this is more incentivizing. They have done a lot to try and incentivize him away from lethality and more into Bruiser. This is just more beneficial for that. They want him to do it. I think that's their core goal here, is to try and bring him back into the full Bruiser build. I don't think that was the right way. I think that was a mistake. [00:19:54] Speaker C: Nope. He's just going to be a more healing of a monster in the top lane for another grievous wounds problem. Like, it just won't. It's just not going to solve anything. I don't know. [00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I really wish they would have just made it. So his deathbringer stance had a like percent missing health ratio. So he heals a lot when he's low, but only based on his actual life pool instead of the way it is now, where all of his healing is just based on the damage he deals, which is why you keep seeing lethality, Aatrox and Eclipse. Aatrox being a thing. Even though he's supposed to be this juggernaut type bruiser. [00:20:33] Speaker B: Eclipse is sort of a juggernaut. I don't know. [00:20:35] Speaker A: He is very much a juggernaut. [00:20:37] Speaker C: Yeah. I might Start playing Aatrox a little bit. Just so I can just join this. I got a feeling he's just gonna turn into a monster. I always hated dealing with an Aatrox anyway. So he's either gonna go to my pick or ban. [00:20:51] Speaker B: I just dislike in much the same way that I was talking with her earlier. I don't like the new Aatrox. I really liked old Aatrox, which is one of the reasons I really like Sahen. Because he's a lot like old Aatrox. [00:21:02] Speaker A: He's a lot like old Aatrox, but without the cruft. So, like, old Aatrox was really jank. [00:21:08] Speaker B: He was very jank. But I've never liked how he plays. I do not like how his healing works. I have never seen a larger heal than a than a pro game match that I got to see where he went from less than 100 to full health in a single hit. [00:21:29] Speaker A: Yep, they all of my grievances with Aatrox would be fixed immediately if they made it. So the increased healing on World Ender scaled multiplicatively with grievous wounds instead of scaling additively. That is the entire problem with Aatrox is normally, oh, you heal 100% cool. Now you heal 60%. In Aatrox case, it goes from oh, you heal 200%. Now you heal 160%. So he still heals drastically more than everyone else. It's cutting his healing by 20%. Whereas grievous wounds cuts everyone else by 40%. I hate that shit. It's dumb. Grievous wounds should be 40% less, not 40% reduced healing. [00:22:10] Speaker C: Yes, we talk about grievous wounds to [00:22:14] Speaker A: actually function, but that's a separate topic. [00:22:16] Speaker C: Yeah, we talk about grievous wounds all the time. All the time. [00:22:21] Speaker B: Shit. That's a good idea for an episode. [00:22:24] Speaker A: We'll shelve it for when we get to an episode where we don't have ideas. We'll bring that one back. I'm gonna talk about a champion that got brought back and is now getting mostly nerfed because he needs it. Ryze has hit the point where he is dominant. He's basically pickerban and pro right now. And that's because he's actually solo queue good. And Ryze, as a design should never be solo queue good outside of like Masters plus. So what they're doing, they're actually increasing his armor growth. They want him to be better against champions like Zed, which were the only things that countered him in solo queue. But in exchange, they are nerfing the bonus damage on his Q that he gets from marking targets with spell flux. At all ranks of his ultimate, it is down by 10%. So significantly smaller Q amplification. [00:23:23] Speaker B: And it's base because it also has a base ratio before the ultimate one. [00:23:26] Speaker A: Right. But that's also down by 10%. So at rank zero of the ultimate, it's still down by 10%. And then they're also increasing the mana cost on his E by 5, which this is something he casts as much as Suya's Q O most. It's a very short cooldown. It's a very spammable spell, so that five mana adds up fast. [00:23:45] Speaker B: This is a massive nerf to his early game because of that mana cost and because of how hefty his mana costs are. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Yep, late game the mana cost does not matter because he literally has 4,000 plus mana. [00:23:59] Speaker B: I've seen 7,000. [00:24:01] Speaker A: Yes. Depends on your specific build and how the game has gone, but at least 4000 mana on like a 3 to 4 item rise. I'm happy about the armor growth because he should not have that kind of insanely skewed one sided matchups in the bad side either. He's a champion who builds Rod of Ages. He should have some bulk to where like assassins aren't looking to prey on him specifically. Champions like Zed should be looking to shove out, rise and roam. They shouldn't be looking to. I'm just going to dive the Ryze and I'm really glad about reducing the overload amplification because Ryze did way too much burst. I've literally been hit for 1500 damage by an overload from a Ryze and that's a point and click spell. And then one skill shot that he doesn't have to hit on me if I'm near minions. [00:24:52] Speaker B: His extra item that they gave him this year, the Actualizer, I think never properly caught on in solo queue until recently. [00:25:02] Speaker A: Which is so dumb because he's literally the reason that item kinda sucks for everyone else. Because he gets so much more mana than every other champion in the game because of his passive that he's abusive with Actualizer and the item is not allowed to be good for anyone else. [00:25:19] Speaker B: So now that more people figured it out, he's. He's just crushing. [00:25:23] Speaker C: He's. [00:25:23] Speaker B: He's been good in Pro all year long. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah, he's been not quite pick or ban until recently, but he's been very high presence in Pro pretty much the entirety of 2026. You know who we wish had more of a presence in Pro Mike? [00:25:38] Speaker B: Oh yeah. No, I adore this champion. He's one of my favorite junglers. He's very fun, he's very good to play. He also is the source of. [00:25:46] Speaker A: He's still my second highest mastery champion. [00:25:49] Speaker B: He's also the source of some of the most fun old school plays. Kha'. Zix. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Wow. He's not even in my top five anymore. What the fuck? I need to play more. [00:26:00] Speaker C: Kha'. [00:26:00] Speaker A: Zix. [00:26:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:01] Speaker B: Now, kha' Zix is getting a small suite of buffs. They are small, but he's getting a few of them. The most important one, the one that will always happen, his passive, the unseen threat. So anytime you are not seen for a second and then you do a damage, you have this bonus called unseen threat that gives you an extra bonus damage. The base damage before the ratio is going up at 5 in all ranks really powerful early. And then they're giving a slight bonus. [00:26:32] Speaker A: Important to note, remember, every time you alt or dip into a bush or anything, this resets this passive. So it's more like 10 to 15 damage in your average attempt to kill someone? [00:26:44] Speaker B: Yes, minimum. Yeah. 10 to 15 usually. Unless you blow them up in one [00:26:48] Speaker A: rotation, which also happens. [00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah. The other two buffs he's getting are, to his least powerful evolves, the ones that you usually choose last. Obviously his Q evolve is the most potent evolve in the game. And his ULT is just that strong. Getting an extra stack of it is just that good. [00:27:09] Speaker A: And having it last longer, the last use is actually even better than the third use in most cases. [00:27:15] Speaker B: So they're doing a slight buff to both the evolve on W and the evolve on E, neither of which are getting damage buffs. They're both getting utility buffs. The slow duration is going up by a quarter second on his W. And the range of your leap, which already got an extended range, is getting an extra hundred range on the jump. That's a long jump. That's a long jump. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Yep. That brings his jump range up to 1,000, by the way. [00:27:46] Speaker B: Oh, that's disgustingly strong. That's. That's. And don't forget, the evolve on leap makes it a resetting cooldown. So you jump in, get a burst cooldown, you jump out. Very few champions can now actually catch you if you do the double jump. [00:28:01] Speaker A: I'm actually surprised that they gave such a small buff to the W, because I feel like the jump evolve was the default for the level 16 evolve. And I don't feel like this changes that. I think it's even more the default than it used to be. [00:28:15] Speaker B: I think. I agree. I think the W needs to have something else to it. If I'm not mistaken, your W evolve allows your W to proc your. Your passive. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Nope. [00:28:30] Speaker B: Did they take that? [00:28:31] Speaker A: It just has that. It used to a long time ago. [00:28:34] Speaker B: They need to give that back. [00:28:36] Speaker A: It just. It slows on the evolve. It shoots in the three shots instead of one. And then if they are isolated, the slow is stronger. So I think that's all the W evolve is. [00:28:47] Speaker B: I think the. The way that they make your W a competitive thing is allow it to proc your unseen passive again. Don't give it isolation, full isolation power. Make it do the proc the unseen. [00:28:58] Speaker A: So his W also has a healing effect. If he. He uses it in melee range normally they could make it. So the evolve just gives him the healing always. And I don't think it would be problematic on Kha' Zix specifically. [00:29:11] Speaker B: I think you might be right on that. It's not a long enough or it's not a short enough cooldown that you can spam the heal. [00:29:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a hundred heal. Like literally at max rank, it is 135 with no ad ratio. It's got an AP ratio. Literally the only AP ratio in his entire kit is the heal. And it's only a 50% AP ratio. [00:29:32] Speaker B: And that's one of the reasons why Riven was the first champion to have no AP ratios. Yeah, because this kind of shit is prevalent. [00:29:39] Speaker A: So I want AP comes more to make me want to evolve the W. [00:29:44] Speaker B: But the W is now much stronger in Mayhem's. [00:29:48] Speaker A: And that scenario, in the modes where you're not evolving Q, W just got better. Because you should not be evolving Q and Mayhem, you just shouldn't. Or Aram of any kind. [00:29:59] Speaker B: You. You, you get it as your second or third evolve. Because the sheer extra bonus damage you get when you get one person is [00:30:06] Speaker A: that strong, the damage doesn't change on the evolve. All the evolve on the Q gives you is 50 bonus range and cooldown reduction on isolated, isolated targets. [00:30:14] Speaker B: It's. It's worth it. [00:30:16] Speaker A: I wouldn't even take the evolve in. In any kind of Aram specifically other modes. Yes. Even if it's not as high value as it is in Summoner's Rift because of Jungling. [00:30:25] Speaker B: But this one we'll have to disagree on. But yeah, but you don't really like Kha' Zix on Irm anyways. [00:30:31] Speaker A: I'm just Saying you get so much ability, haste and mayhem off of most of the good augments anyway, that's fucking worthless. [00:30:40] Speaker B: Get the slow as the person who plays him quite a bit in mayhem, I think it's actually quite potent, but not as your first one. He needs to be second or third. [00:30:48] Speaker A: All right, pillow, take us home. Talk to us about the duelist in the top lane. [00:30:53] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Next buffs I want to talk about are Fiora. She got some health growth from 99 to 105, which is going to help her quite a bit in the top lane. That's no small number. Even though six is a small number. But it's. I think it's going to be pretty impactful. But the big change here came with her R. The her R puts the four vitals around you. If you proc. All four, it puts a big healing circle on the ground. The healing circle got increased. It was 550 and now it's 600. The healing per tick of the circle. Yeah. How. Yeah. How big that circle gets? Right. [00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:35] Speaker C: Okay. I was like, make sure I worded that right. And the heel per tick is. Was 18.75 to 31.25 plus 15% of your bonus ad. And that's getting buffed to 20 to 32.5 plus 17 and a half bonus ad for a maximum of up to 350% bonus ad and 460, 400 to 650 as the base plus 350% of your bonus ad. That's a pretty significant heal. [00:32:08] Speaker A: That's enough to top up a Fiora entirely when she's at like three to four items. [00:32:13] Speaker C: And this doesn't just work on Fiora. This works on her whole team. [00:32:17] Speaker B: Yep. 50 bonus max ad as the max heel. That's a. That's a lot. Well, bonus ad. I'm sorry. As the max heel, that's a. That's a lot. For the ratio she gets. She is one of the top lane champions where when she has played, she is building lots of ad. She hurts. [00:32:38] Speaker A: It makes me sad that they don't have the old. Do you remember when Fiora's ultimate scaled the healing based on how many vitals you triggered before the target died? [00:32:50] Speaker B: It doesn't do that anymore. [00:32:52] Speaker C: It doesn't do that. I could have swore it did that. Still. [00:32:55] Speaker A: Nope. If you trigger all four vitals or you trigger at least one and the target dies, you get full value heal. [00:33:03] Speaker C: Huh. I didn't know that. [00:33:04] Speaker A: Which is my main objection because it means that often a team fight the correct way to play Fiora is to ult someone and proc of vital right before they die to instantly just heal your team for a shit ton. And I don't like that. I feel like that's antithetical to what Fiora is supposed to be. [00:33:22] Speaker C: Yeah, this. [00:33:24] Speaker B: She's also just not a really good team fight champion. So, yeah, if that's her teamfight role, I think it's probably okay because her duelist role is. Oh, no, you're surrounded with me. Let me beat the crap out of you. [00:33:36] Speaker A: I just wish the healing scaled with the vitals again. I don't like her being able to heal her entire team for thousands. [00:33:42] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's a. That's a lot of damage, all right. A lot of healing. [00:33:46] Speaker A: Now, if I was smart, I would have gone dipillo before Mike, because our first listener question tonight is about being unseen. And Kha' Zix just got his unseen buff. So our first question tonight comes from Fan Factor, who writes how to know if you are truly unseen. Say you go for a lane gank or you're using the terrain to block vision. How do you correctly know you are outside of vision range of minions or champions? I will think I'm being sneaky hiding behind terrain near my team's turret for a gank, and I'll watch the replay. And I was barely visible from an enemy minion that broke rank. Do you have any tips for managing this? [00:34:23] Speaker B: Here's the first thing that I will tell you. If you are in a vision point where you do not have initial vision. So like walking between the first and the second turret and a minion sees you, or and you see a minion, the minion sees you. That is always true. So if you. I believe the vision ranges are the same. [00:34:44] Speaker A: So Champions and super Minions and turrets all have the same range. Regular minions have a slightly shorter range than you do. If you can see them, it is possible for them not to see you. [00:34:56] Speaker B: If you can barely make out part of one minion, it is not. The range difference is very minuscule. [00:35:03] Speaker A: The range difference is 150. It's not huge. But it is important to note that it is different. I actually just recommend go to the site page on the League wiki and look at all the ranges. Because the big one that I think throws a lot of people off is knowing war division ranges Wards have significantly shorter vision than Minions or Champions. [00:35:26] Speaker B: There's two other things about this. Obviously, for most of us, we're talking your. Your red trinket. Knowing that there is or Isn't vision is a huge thing. [00:35:37] Speaker A: Y. [00:35:39] Speaker B: You will notice as you're moving around with just. Just wander on the map in a very good thing with terrain, and you'll see the shadow of your vision move. That is how you know where your cutoff is. Are on vision. That's just put something down on the map that you can't normally see and then wander through and try and peek at it. That's how the terrain vision is going to work. You're going to figure that one out and then honestly, like unseen, unseen. If you are an ad jungler who uses lethality, you should seriously consider Rumble Clave. You will always as long as it has not proc'd know if you are on vision and other things. Seeing you is not really like that. That's just movement around the map. You'll figure that out as you're moving along. That's a test thing. You. You're going to want to just test that out. But learning where those little minutia of ward placements are like getting that thing going, That's. That's gonna be how you do unseen ganks. Sit there doing baits. Sit there trying to get in behind someone there. There is a second option, and that is be so fast, it doesn't matter. There are just some junglers and some laners that. Okay, you saw me on vision. Big whoop. What are you gonna do about it? You're not getting out. Ramus runs too fast. Nasus runs too fast. What are you doing with that? [00:37:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Honestly, especially if you're in lower Elo. [00:37:17] Speaker B: I said nasus nunu. [00:37:18] Speaker A: Yeah, especially if you're in lower Elo. A lot of times the answer is just don't hesitate. Just go in. They won't have noticed you in time to react. Yeah, if you hesitate and stop, they'll likely notice you. But if you're just running in by the time they have looked at their map and seen you coming, it's too late. A lot of the time in Lower Elo, I still see that happen all the time in Plat and Emerald, where you just walk in and by the time they notice you, you're nearly on top of them. [00:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:47] Speaker A: The other thing I like to say when it comes to playing around vision is sometimes you can just, you know, mirror the map. So this mostly applies to jungle and getting spotted by minions. You may be aware you can be spotted when you are doing your Krugs by the lane Minions. If you're doing the enemy Krugs, you can literally if you want to walk past that area unseen and you're not sure if vision has dropped from the minions yet, look at your own minions. [00:38:17] Speaker B: Yep, they're all looks perfectly mirrored. That's exactly what I was thinking. [00:38:20] Speaker A: If you look at your own Krug side lane. See when your minions can't see that hallway anymore, when your minions can't see it, their minions can't see it. That one is always true. As long as their minions have control of that space. [00:38:37] Speaker B: Speaking of, that reminds me of a way to know when someone is somewhere without having any vision on them, without knowing anything about them. The jungle camps always show if you can see the camp location whether or not there is a camp alive there. So if someone has pulled a buff or a minion group into a bush and is now outside of vision, you will know if it's still alive. Which means you know that they're there. [00:39:06] Speaker A: Yep. Only other thing I would say is just take Sixth Sense, the domination rune that automatically reveals that you have been spotted by a ward and eventually at level 11 reveals that Ward itself helps a lot with just not wasting your fucking time. But also remember, even if you know there's a ward there, you can clear that ward and then gank in 10 seconds. People do not have object permanence. They will assume that because you cleared a ward you knew you were seen so you walked away and then you just gank anyway. [00:39:38] Speaker B: Or you switch that bush after clearing and wait for them to put that new ward back. Because that's real common practice. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Yep, yep. Especially if you're ganking bot lane specifically. The support will go oh, he cleared my ward, I need to replace it and then die. Alright, our next question comes from Jonathan. We got a bunch of questions from Jonathan. Thank you. Jonathan writes. Hi Wards. Here's some questions and comments for context. I am silver for currently when learning a new champion or role. How do you do it? Because I want to get into mid lane and I did not want to start with ranked games. However, when I did normals, my opponents were frequently either new or way worse than me. I could focus on CSING and helping the rest of the map, but do you have any advice for finding better suited matchups? [00:40:21] Speaker B: Play more normals. [00:40:22] Speaker A: Yeah, normals have a big spread. You're gonna get games where you are massively better than the other person and games where you are fucking gapped. [00:40:32] Speaker B: For context, Jax and I range between emerald and goldish. Or we're playing. We will frequently, it seems recently be [00:40:42] Speaker A: matched with diamond players, masters players. [00:40:45] Speaker B: We've had some masters players with us [00:40:47] Speaker A: and literal bronze and iron players, sometimes in the same game. [00:40:51] Speaker C: But often I can tell you how many times I've went against master players in the top lane when I'm playing like in normals, it's. It's just ridiculous. [00:41:03] Speaker A: But you also sometimes go up against people who are massively worse than you. It's just luck of the draw. If you play enough games, you'll get both sides of the experience and you'll also get to go against people who are roughly around your skill level. You just need to play enough. [00:41:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that it. Normals have their own MMR for you. So just play more so it has a better version of what to think of you and it gives you a wider broad range because it's a normal. They don't want you to wait as long for ranked. They're not trying to pair you perfectly. They want you. Okay. Do that a lot. You'll figure things out. My favorite way of learning a champion to play, I don't do anymore because I hate what they changed with. I used to do just doing test games was always a thing just to figure out what the ability does. I'd do a co op vs AI so I could figure out what the abilities are, play them around and do it blind from it. I despise swift play version where you start from three because you no longer have any idea how to play your first couple levels for a normal and a ranked game. So that way it doesn't work anymore. To get my first fail of a champion, you have to. You should actually just do a test game. Do a. What the fuck is it called again? Training. The training practice tool. The practice tool. Yeah. Go in there just to roll your abilities around to play them, to see what the ratios are like and to get a feel for how it works. Because some champions are not intuitive how to play them. For example, like this. It's been a long time since I've done this, but a champion like Rumbler Victor how it has a brand new style of how to play a champion. You would not be able to go into a normal and play that and expect to win again because one of your core abilities just doesn't work. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah, you got to learn how to do it. [00:42:53] Speaker B: So do something to figure out, okay, this is how the ability works. And then once you're fully comfortable with that, go into normals and just play normals. And if you want normals with people who will be happy to play with you, come, come join us at a time. We're Happy to play like we play tons of normals with people frequently. [00:43:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Seriously. [00:43:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Join the discord. Come play normals with us most days. At least one of us is around to play norms at least in the evening North American time. If you're not in North America, I'm sorry, we're all North America based. That's where we play. You're welcome to come make a account on the server anyway and play with us if you're willing to deal with the lag. [00:43:31] Speaker B: We have one very frequent user from Europe. If you're also European, he may be very thankful to be able to play in Europe at normal ping with somebody at normal times for him. So give it a try and see. [00:43:45] Speaker A: Alright. We got more questions though so let's keep going. Regarding Jax's comment on support being better the higher up you play, I could also imagine that bot laners know better how to play weak side in my games as a support. When I try to roam, my bot laner quite often dies. They are too greedy for cs. This happens even when I'm in a call with the bot laner. It hinders me a bit from wanting to roam more. Yeah no. They're just as fucking stupid in emerald as they were in gold. They died a stupid shit greeting for a caster minion. Not even a cannon. A caster minion ad carries are the [00:44:16] Speaker B: greediest champions in the game. Every ounce of gold they can get they will try and kill for. [00:44:20] Speaker A: Support is the they will die for it and blame you. [00:44:24] Speaker B: Support is the largest gap in skill from the low to the high. Low supports will cost you games because they will ruin lanes and destroy a potential winning lane. And good supports can single handedly win you a game. [00:44:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. So question three is as some of you are generalists, how do you determine which champions you play? When? Is it just what you want to play in the moment? Is it depending on the matchup? [00:44:51] Speaker B: Yes, yes. For a little bit farm fun, we'll go into games going hey, who's played this for a while? I'm not feeling this for a while, let's switch roles etc. Something like that. If we have friends who frequently like to play one role and don't want to do others, we'll switch around and do that. And then based on what we are given at the time, we'll usually try and do something like if either of us are a support night of carry, we will try and do something that either pairs well together with who we're playing with or honestly, if it's something that like, hey, I know I really like playing Leona or brand in the bot lane. I'm gonna try and do that when I can. But for the most part, a lot of the times I just play what I want because I'm happy to play every role. I'll just do something there. And when I'm in my choice of either top lane or mid lane, that's when I like playing based on matchup, that's when I will go. I like seeing what I'm playing against to determine what I am playing. But I have more, I have more personal agency, I think in jungle and ad carry and I try and fix things up in the other three roles. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say if you've played norms with me, when I'm jungling, you know that I will frequently just be like guys, what do I feel like playing in the jungle? And I'll just play whatever people tell me to play. I don't do that. [00:46:06] Speaker B: And I'll sell and I'll tell him to do something stupid. [00:46:08] Speaker A: Sometimes I'll veto it if I'm really not feeling it. But otherwise I'll just play whatever it is because we're playing norms and I'm here to have fun. And I literally will play most champions in the jungle. I have legitimately played Taric jungle. I think this year in a norm [00:46:25] Speaker B: I'll get you on that Kiyana jungle. [00:46:28] Speaker C: For me when I'm not, if I'm not playing like anything specific that day or trying to, I just try to do it on matchup base and if I can't do it off matchup and then I. That's just when I go in with what my best blind pick could possibly be and just try to change my build for the matchup. Yeah, if you always match up. [00:46:50] Speaker B: If you have a static role, have a blind pick you are comfortable playing and if you get the option to counter, figure it out. [00:46:58] Speaker A: That being said, I just looked at my stats for ranked. Do you want to guess how many different champions I've played and ranked in 20, 26, 63. [00:47:06] Speaker C: Pillow 74. [00:47:08] Speaker A: Mike, you are insanely close. 65. I have played 65 different champions. [00:47:14] Speaker B: Damn, I forgot your two auto filled support games. I don't know. [00:47:17] Speaker A: Fucking seriously guys, please do not be like me. Do not play that many champions in [00:47:22] Speaker B: ranked pare that down by 10 times. [00:47:26] Speaker A: Yeah, play like six instead and you'll have a much better time. Now to be fair, actually this isn't really a to be fair. Number 51. Number 53. I've played twice. Jesus Christ. I have a problem, guys. I have a problem. Might as I grumble about me being cursed. Some of it, definitely not all of it, but some of it is just that I'm stupid and play too many goddamn champions. Okay, let's get our last question from Jonathan for tonight and then we'll wrap up here. His last question is. When I'm duo queueing or playing in flex, we sometimes get matched with players with better skills or matchup knowledge. How do you switch from playing against silver bronze players to playing against gold or higher? Of course, the question can be adapted to whatever tier you're actually in. [00:48:13] Speaker C: For me, the more you go up in elo, you're going to start fighting for your resources more often than not. So higher ELO to me is better CS and better map awareness. So if you can evolve getting your gold score up and then also continuing to watch your like map and understand what's going on and who's where and knowing what's going on in the whole map other than just what's going on in your lane, that's how I think you're going to have your biggest adjustment. I've said it a hundred times, I'll say it again. You just really just need to end up focusing on your CS and not giving up your gold and do your back timings. And that's how you're going to match somebody in gold. Even plat. It's just back timings and getting gold. You don't even have to get kills. [00:49:14] Speaker B: So if you were a jungler, there's not really any difference. Your plan is your plan. You're going to deviate from it almost never. Unless someone is actively invading you, in which case they're trying to murder you. So you just got either have to fight fair life or run. And that's true across all ranks. In lane matchups, I think the biggest decider is your first two levels. First two or three levels that sets the tone for what your game is going to end up being like. If you can match the skill level of your opponent in your first two or three levels, generally speaking, you know you've got a pretty good chance of facing them. If you slam them, you, you know you're gonna be probably pretty good unless someone else is also slammed. If you are being beaten down, you now know you need to play more cautious. Each of these like adaptations going forward is going to determine how your playstyle is. You're more likely to find people who are going to fight you heavier. So you're going to Play more defensive in those higher ELO games. You will also end up finding that people are better suited to playing what type of champion they're doing as opposed to just randomly attacking you. So there are champions who are suited to being hyper aggressive or suitor to being more passive. They will generally speaking play more along those lines. A Draven player is going to drave in. They're going to go in and try and beat the crap out of you. And you need to start actively playing against what that is the higher and higher up you go. And that's pretty much like the main thing. The other one would be if you're playing on a relatively even place, how teamfights play out. That's going to end up being the serious skill difference in Colts over bronze is how teamfights play. [00:51:03] Speaker A: All right? So it does not matter whether I'm playing norms or ranked. I always enter laning phase respecting my opponent. I'm going to assume that they are as good or better than me until they prove otherwise. Now that doesn't mean I'm gonna play scared. Doesn't mean I'm gonna play like super risk averse. I'm still gonna test them, but I'm not going to assume that they are going to make mistakes. I'm going into every single lane going, okay, what can this guy do to kick my ass and what do I need to do to make sure he doesn't? And this results in. I very rarely have lanes that I just get blown out in. It does happen. It happens to everyone, but it's rare for me. And it also means that I rarely will just blow someone out level one unless they catastrophically just in the lane. That definitely happens sometimes. The biggest thing for me by far is just I don't go in assuming they're a dumb fuck. Even if I see their lower rank, if I'm so I'm in emerald right now, if I go in and I see that my mid lane opponent is a gold player, I'm not gonna go in like I'm gonna go style on this fucking gold player. Let's go. Because I've been humbled by bronze players before. It happens. So that's the biggest thing is I don't care what the matchup is. I don't care what the ranks are. I'm going in with the expectation this guy is going to play his best and I need to play around that. I need to play to that. And then if they prove they're an idiot, yeah, I'm gonna start playing a little Fast and loose and trying to abuse that fact. If they prove they're much better than me, I'm gonna start playing more cautiously and safely and trying not to feed my game. But I'm going to evaluate that before I'm really judging how I should be playing the matchup. I'm approaching it the same for whatever the matchup is every single time until I'm told otherwise. [00:53:04] Speaker B: Unless you are actively using other third party software or websites, just seeing what their rank is doesn't tell you enough about their player. You don't know if they've been having at this account for a long time. You don't know if this is someone who's a Smurf who just played this recently. You have no idea what you're facing and you have no idea how their games have been going unless you are actively doing that extra research. [00:53:27] Speaker A: And even if you are, it doesn't always tell the whole story. [00:53:30] Speaker B: It doesn't always tell you the whole story, but you can get a better idea on what you're doing if you do that. A lot of the time you don't have enough time. Some games are started within less than a minute. That's not really enough time to do any real research. So just. Just assume you're on even skill with everyone when you start the game and let them prove you otherwise. [00:53:50] Speaker A: Yep. [00:53:50] Speaker B: All right. [00:53:51] Speaker A: I lied. We're going to do one more question because it's a quick one. This one comes from Cinder in the Discord and he's just asking who are you guys picks for the next hall of Legends inductee? So if you weren't paying attention, Caps, the European mid lane player is the new hall of Legends inductee. So Cinder wants to know who we think should be the 2027 one. Assuming nothing crazy happens that would change our opinions. And Mike, I think you and I are in agreement. [00:54:18] Speaker B: I have two options here and it depends on what their decision is for it. [00:54:24] Speaker A: Right. Cause you were saying if they're trying to get one from each region, then it's different than if you just pick the player you think is the most deserving next. [00:54:32] Speaker B: Yes. And if they're trying to do one from each region, the next is na. They're probably gonna do double lift. But I think they should do Bjergsen because I think he's had a more impactful career even though it is a shorter career. If not, I think that it is unquestionable that Kiria should get the next one. [00:54:52] Speaker A: Karia is my answer. I don't give a fuck about anything else. Keria, I think is the single best League of Legends player to be currently playing the game and has been for like three years straight now. And remember, he's on a team with Faker. [00:55:11] Speaker B: He's not taking the crown as best player of all time from Faker. It's pretty hard to do that. Faker single handedly changed how the game [00:55:18] Speaker A: is played, but I think he is literally the best player of the 2020period. [00:55:24] Speaker B: I can't disagree. [00:55:25] Speaker A: And the fact that he looks that insanely dominant and insanely creative on a team with Faker on it to where it's really hard to get any spotlight on yourself because Faker is your teammate and he still stands out. That much tells you how fucking good carrier is. [00:55:45] Speaker B: Pillow, you got an opinion? [00:55:47] Speaker A: I don't know if Pillow watches pro. [00:55:49] Speaker C: I don't. I don't watch pro and that's okay. [00:55:53] Speaker A: Me and Mike both do. So we wanted to answer this even though it's obviously not really related to four Wards. [00:55:58] Speaker B: So keep keeping it with Kyria. If. If Kyria takes it. His shenaniganry makes me think one of his two skins should be a support Lucian. That's the kind of shit he does. [00:56:11] Speaker A: Sure, we'll go with Lucian in the support lane this time for our wrap up. Realistically it might be something like Rumble though, because that is the kind of person Keria is. [00:56:20] Speaker B: That's the kind of person he is. He's the one who made support Kalista and it won hard. [00:56:27] Speaker A: I know. I mean Cap's got Tristana. Karia could absolutely pick something weird if Karia gets it. Alright guys, this has been episode 549 of the 4 Words podcast. I've been Jack Soman for Mike of many names for Pillow Pet. Have a great night. [00:56:44] Speaker C: Good night. [00:56:45] Speaker B: Good night everybody. [00:56:47] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our [email protected] the Four Wards Podcast. And of course send your questions to the Four Wards Podcastmail.com so we can answer them live on the show. That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.