The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 551: The Worlds 2026 Patch!

[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. [00:00:35] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to episode 551 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Zoman and I've got with me two other wards to help you [00:00:46] Speaker C: move forward in League of Legends. [00:00:47] Speaker B: We've got Mike of many names. [00:00:50] Speaker D: How's it going everyone? [00:00:52] Speaker B: And not getting crushed by his job this week it's Pillow Pet. [00:00:55] Speaker E: Hi, I am here. I'm getting crushed by my other job that I've self made. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that one's your own fault, you know. [00:01:02] Speaker C: You can't blame anyone else for that one. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Guys, we are the four Words podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out. Come play games with us. There's been a lot of normal games [00:01:12] Speaker C: and arams happening recently. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Come join the Discord. Come hang out. It's a great time. [00:01:16] Speaker C: Link is in the episode description. [00:01:18] Speaker B: We also stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV [00:01:21] Speaker C: Jacksonman where there will be honestly mostly [00:01:24] Speaker B: super Metroid for the foreseeable future. And you'll have to listen to from 8bit to 4k to understand why Mike will be at Twitch TV mikeofmanynames and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch TV. Pillow Pet, maybe you should just stream your lawnmower repair. [00:01:38] Speaker E: I really thought about it. I honestly I thought about getting like some meta glasses or something. [00:01:44] Speaker C: Like genuinely do that. It would be fucking cool. I would tune in, see if I could learn something. [00:01:50] Speaker E: Except you're just gonna see see me sitting there hearing me. What the fuck? This doesn't even make any sense. Where did this part come from? [00:01:58] Speaker C: That's entertaining. [00:01:59] Speaker E: Oh no. Why do I have it? Why do I have an extra bolt? Oh well. [00:02:03] Speaker B: Yep. Guys, we also need to give some shout outs to our patrons who support us at the shoutout tier. Shout out to Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Labana, Uncle ChrisCo and Skippius Esquire for supporting us at that shoutout tier. If you want a shout out or just to support us in general, head over to patreon.com theforwardspodcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive [00:02:26] Speaker C: feed of some behind the scenes audio [00:02:28] Speaker B: of our prep work before each show. $10 a month gets you that same exclusive feed and we will 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, or wherever [00:02:42] Speaker C: you get your podcasts. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Last but not least, listeners, we still need more questions. We actually did get questions this week, so no, no disappointed, dad Jacks, I'm [00:02:54] Speaker C: pleased, but that doesn't mean you should stop. [00:02:56] Speaker B: Keep sending Those questions to the four [00:02:58] Speaker C: wards podcastmail.com all right, it's a patch week this week. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Matter of fact, not just any patch. This is the world's patch. This is the patch that the entire [00:03:11] Speaker C: World Championships tournament will be played on. [00:03:13] Speaker B: So the rest of us will still be getting another patch in two weeks. But if you're watching Worlds, they're still [00:03:19] Speaker C: gonna be on this one for the next month and a half that the tournament's gonna last. [00:03:23] Speaker D: Yeah, about which. [00:03:25] Speaker B: Which means that there's a lot of [00:03:26] Speaker C: just numbers changes, type changes in this patch. [00:03:30] Speaker B: So we're gonna highlight the things that either are numbers changes that are interesting [00:03:34] Speaker C: because none of us cares about minor changes to AD growth and that kind of stuff, or the changes that made it into this patch that aren't just numerical. [00:03:44] Speaker B: And I'm gonna start with one that I don't think is all that impactful. However, I want to highlight it because it highlights a feature of a champion [00:03:52] Speaker C: that I think many people didn't know about. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Mordekaiser got two changes. They buffed the cooldown on rank one [00:03:58] Speaker C: and two of his ult. This is the same at rank three as it was before. [00:04:02] Speaker B: And then they increased the scaling on his Q. Now the increase is whatever. The reason I highlight it is Mordekaiser is one of the only champions in League of Legends who has base damage on an ability scaling by his champion level. Mordekaiser's Q scales damage with his champion level. Almost every other champion that has an [00:04:28] Speaker C: ability that works that way, it's their passive champion passives regularly scale this way. [00:04:33] Speaker D: Now, admittedly anyone who's been playing for forever, you can't remember everything that Mord does. Because Mord's been changed seven times. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:41] Speaker D: So if you didn't know about this one in the most recent one, it was probably made there to get him to be back to a top laner. [00:04:47] Speaker C: Yep. Because top lane has always been generally more experience gained than the other roles because they spend the most time alone. Obviously now with the role quest that's exaggerated because they also get bonus xp, but they're the role that spends the most time alone. They've Always been the highest experience role. [00:05:04] Speaker B: So yeah, he got buffed. Mordekaiser I think was already in a pretty good place. So Mordekaiser players should be happy. Mike, what do you got? [00:05:13] Speaker D: I'm also going to start off with the probably least impactful one and I highlight it because it reminds me now that we're getting into world season of a moment from the bygone worlds, Lilia is getting a instead of static duration on her ultimate for the sleep, a scaling duration that is actually only a buff. It's going from just 2 and a half seconds to 2 and a half to 3 seconds which may have helped the last time Lillia really saw play because this was actually probably the last time Lillia saw play was in this worlds where someone got a five man ultimate on the enemy team and nothing happened because apparently he also slept the rest of his team too. [00:05:55] Speaker C: Yep. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Do you remember which player that was? [00:05:57] Speaker D: That was speaker from tsm. [00:05:59] Speaker C: Yes, which. The fact that it was TSM should tell you how long ago this was and how long it's been since Lilia saw any play on international stage. [00:06:09] Speaker D: I believe that was 2019. [00:06:11] Speaker C: God, was it really that long ago? [00:06:13] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I think so. [00:06:15] Speaker C: Oh my God, guys, I'm so old. [00:06:18] Speaker D: May have been 2020, but it was not in the more recent years. [00:06:22] Speaker E: I remember I was so excited when Lilia got released too. [00:06:24] Speaker D: She's still fun, she still clears relatively well. She just doesn't see as much use anywhere now because she's not as much of a duelist as a lot of the other junglers really are. She's sort of a fights in, fights out, runaway skirmisher. And those kind of skirmishes aren't really the power of jungle nowadays. [00:06:45] Speaker C: I checked Mike, it was couldn't have been 2019 because TSM didn't make it to worlds. It Must have been 2020. [00:06:52] Speaker D: Must have been 2020. Okay. [00:06:53] Speaker C: Still six years ago. Jesus, I love Lilia. I really wish she was actually like good good instead of like fringe good or cheese good. [00:07:04] Speaker D: I think there's going to need to be a fundamental change in how the jungle works before she's able to be that way again. Or at least how quickly she can clear jungles because she used to be one of the fastest. [00:07:15] Speaker C: She's still one of the fastest. If you, if you're good at kiting the camps and like doing Lilia correctly, she. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Her first clear is not the fastest [00:07:25] Speaker C: but like subsequent clears. Once you get items, she just deletes the entire jungle. [00:07:29] Speaker D: She, she may be the best kiting champion in the jungle, period. [00:07:35] Speaker C: Like, because she gets so much free movement speed. If you're into mid to late game, you can literally clear both jungles before the camps start respawning, which is insane. No one else can do that because they just don't move fast enough, regardless of how fast they can kill the camps themselves. [00:07:49] Speaker E: Her passive healing is just crazy. [00:07:51] Speaker D: Her passive healing is great, but she requires so much intimate knowledge because you need to know how much that dot is doing plus the pet damage to be able to kill things with kiting. So when they changed how kiting works, she really lost favor. It requires too much dedicated knowledge. [00:08:08] Speaker C: Yes. Yes, it does. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Speaking of dedicated knowledge, Pillow, it's your turn. [00:08:14] Speaker E: Yeah, I want to talk about Tahm Kench. So they gave Tom Kench's self healing on his Q a pretty substantial buff. When it comes to the later ranks, they've doubled it. So it was 10 scaling to 25 and now it is 10 scaling up to 50. And I know it doesn't sound like a lot, 25 more healing, but it's quite substantial when you get the scaling in it and everything with it. [00:08:44] Speaker C: This is substantial in the early to mid game because late game the missing health percent on it is going to be drastically higher than the base heal. [00:08:54] Speaker B: But early game 20 health can be the difference between dying and not dying in a fight. [00:08:59] Speaker E: I mean there's, there's times even late game where I'll be like, oh, I lived with 5 HP. [00:09:06] Speaker B: I mean it happens. [00:09:08] Speaker C: I literally survived one like yesterday in [00:09:11] Speaker E: a mayhem or just like the final tick of an ignite. Get you. Or Leandries or brand passive. Like 20 health can make quite the difference between life and death in late game too. [00:09:24] Speaker D: And this is not likely to see too much of a buff for topside. He's strong as well in top side anyways. But usually he's not surviving because of his own healing, he's surviving because of his insane dueling damage. [00:09:39] Speaker B: And he. He is surviving because of his healing, [00:09:42] Speaker C: but it's because he gets really low and then just doesn't actually die between his heel and his shield being spammed over and over, which is the missing health portion and is drastically higher than the space heal. He's very. [00:09:53] Speaker E: So yeah, they like my kind of that. This is specifically a buff for his like support lane to try to bring him on par with the other tank supports because his health regen is much lower than all of theirs, mainly because of his E passive. So they keep it balanced. So they're trying to bring him in there a little bit. Yeah, he's just. He's more. I would even put him almost just. He's more of a duelist than he's ever going to be as a tank, just because of all the multiple build paths. Like he's a tank that's great. [00:10:28] Speaker D: With Riftmaker, I think honestly his best pairing is still having Senna be the support and him being the 80. [00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I could see that. [00:10:37] Speaker E: I think he's one of the few tanks that actually builds Dusk and Dawn. He might be the only tank because [00:10:42] Speaker B: he has an on hit effect on his passive. [00:10:46] Speaker C: It's not like a conditional or a like certain number of procs on hit. He just does on hit percent bonus health damage. [00:10:55] Speaker E: And I mean his Q Plus auto [00:10:57] Speaker D: attack instantly stacks you to 3 then. [00:11:00] Speaker E: And he spams out all his abilities minus his W. His Q gets to a really short cooldown. His E starts at like no cooldown basically. So he gets a really good like use of Sheen procs. [00:11:13] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Now we mentioned this is not much of a buff for Tahm Kench Top. You know what is a buff for Tahm Kench Top? [00:11:21] Speaker C: Experimental hex plate getting nerfed for ranged users. Again. [00:11:24] Speaker D: Thank God. [00:11:25] Speaker B: Thank fuck. [00:11:27] Speaker C: Honestly, I wish they would just make this item melee only. I really do. [00:11:32] Speaker B: But instead of doing that, they've simply made it. So now ranged users only get half [00:11:37] Speaker C: of the value of the hex plate proc instead of about 2/3. So now it only gives 25% attack speed and 10 movement speed for a few seconds after you Ult for ranged users, which is low enough that they just shouldn't be building the item. Vayne and Varys, thank you. Please build other shit so that you can actually be killed if people can reach you. But also, champions shouldn't exist in top lane. God damn it. [00:12:01] Speaker D: It's not really strong enough. And even so, some of them were doing it in bot lane as their third, fourth item. It's. Its values are now low enough that I do not see this being anywhere near valuable enough for them to build it. Honestly, if they're going to build anything, they may as well just build the jack show that people were already doing. [00:12:18] Speaker C: Yep, it's weak enough offensively that you're better off just building something that's actually defensive instead of a hybrid defensive offensive item. [00:12:27] Speaker B: So they also made changes to a couple other items. Runaan's just got a minor nerf to [00:12:32] Speaker C: the 80 ratio on the bolts. Just numbers change. [00:12:36] Speaker B: The other interesting item change is Hextech Rocket Belt. They cut the ability haste on it [00:12:41] Speaker C: in half, which is good. It gave way too much ability haste. Like, it was a really high ability [00:12:48] Speaker B: haste item that cost way less than [00:12:50] Speaker C: the other really high ability haste items. [00:12:52] Speaker D: And instead of reducing the gold efficiency by making it more expensive, they're reducing the haste, which is, I think, the better way to doing this. Keep it a cheap item. [00:13:02] Speaker C: Yes. [00:13:02] Speaker B: And then they are, however, giving it a compensatory buff to use it more [00:13:07] Speaker C: for aggression instead of it being an escape tool. They don't want people being like, oh, [00:13:12] Speaker B: I'm playing Victor, let me build a [00:13:13] Speaker C: rocket belt so I can dash out of your engage. [00:13:16] Speaker B: So they are adding damage to the [00:13:18] Speaker C: dash fireballs that it shoots, buffing both the base damage and the AP ratio [00:13:23] Speaker B: on it, which skews it more heavily towards. [00:13:25] Speaker C: I'm pressing this button to go in and kill people. I'm happy about this. The item is genuinely good on champions like Cho' Gath and Annie. Who needs some gap close? Kennen, Same thing needs more gap close. [00:13:41] Speaker B: It's great on those champions already, and this secures it into that niche instead [00:13:45] Speaker C: of it being something I would build on Lissandra, just because it's generically a lot of haste and I can get it fast. [00:13:51] Speaker D: For example, there may still be some champions who will, just because it is a cheap option, go for this first, even though it's not as beneficial to them now, it is still always going to be a good item. [00:14:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:04] Speaker D: But sometimes you just need a completed item immediately, and the cheapest option will occasionally be the best. [00:14:10] Speaker B: So, Mike, you've got two marksmen in your list remaining. [00:14:13] Speaker C: Pick one. [00:14:13] Speaker D: We're gonna go with my preferred marksman first. My potentially favorite champion right now. I love smolder. I really love smolder. And they're giving him a couple more minor buffs. These are minor buffs, except for maybe the ultimate buff that could be bigger than I'm thinking it. It is the buff with his. His passive. His Q is getting a minor increase to its scaling with crit. And so to go along with that, it gets a slightly bigger one with the IE crit portion as well. Same thing is going on with his E, his flap. Flap. They're getting slightly more magic damage with crit scaling. So this is just further encouraging you to properly build the crit values to get him into 100% crit with an eye edge. It has always been his best build since they gave him this crit scaling. It will continue to be the best, and it is slightly stronger. Next thing he is getting, I think I might say significant base damage buffs and maybe depending on how much bonus ad, he actually has a good buff for the self heal on his Ult, which is why this is a maybe huge buff. Because this is just the heal, not the damage. It's going up by 80 base. Damn base healing for the final rank. The first rank is still the same. However, the AD ratio is going up 25% bonus ad. That is a significant potential buff. This could be very easily the difference between him losing a duel and winning a duel with that amount of health going through that, that's the only thing it's affecting. It's just the heal on this. So it's not like he's going to become a significantly better duelist, but he is also getting slightly stronger because of how he's doing his scaling with the I edge. And if you've noticed, a lot of the crit ad items that have good solid ad are fairly high ad for the items, they're one of the higher sets of ad items in the game. So he could have a significant amount of bonus ad giving him a relatively significant heal from this. In fact, I think the only attack speed he builds is occasionally the the gun that gives him extra range. Everything else is just raw damage. So this should be a like 200 health buff overall, considering he's getting 80 base. I'm liking it. [00:16:37] Speaker B: All right, pillow what you got? [00:16:40] Speaker E: Yeah, for my next one, I went with Niko and it's a very minor buff, but I just recently played her just for fun and support Lane and noticed that she felt really good. And I think this goes along really well with the rocket belt change because she is a big user of rocket belt for her R. And so what happened with her is her base damage of her e was 70 scaling up to 210 with a 65% AP ratio is now 80 going up to 220. So getting 10 damage at each rank. The AP ratio stays the same and the root duration is going up early and stays the same at the last rank. So it was 1.8 going to 3 seconds and now it's 2 scaling to 3 seconds. I mean, 0.2 seconds might not seem like a lot, but it's. It's quite a bit. Two seconds of being rooted and it is the empowered. So I cannot 100% remember how it works. But isn't it the farther away on that she casts her E, the farther away you are is depending on the route. Or is it first target? [00:17:56] Speaker B: First target hit is the rule for Nico. [00:17:59] Speaker E: Okay, so yeah, if you get hit by her snare, you're now locked in there for 0.2 seconds longer. So almost. What is that, 10%? Just about 10% longer, to be clear. [00:18:13] Speaker B: First target hit gets the reduced root duration. Everything after the first target gets the long duration route. [00:18:19] Speaker E: Okay, so it is everything after the first gets empowered. [00:18:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:23] Speaker E: Okay. So if you cast it and it goes through minion waves, there has no limit. It just hits everything. And so it's significantly better as far as skill wise, I would say, than even Morgana Bind, because that one has to be aimed. Niko can just throw it right through a minion wave. The duration going up is huge, to a max of 3 seconds. 3 seconds is a long time. And if you don't know how her Q works, if you throw a Q and it bounces on you, it re procs itself. I think three times. If you stand in the first one, it procs a second one. If you get hit by the second, it'll proc a third. So she does a lot of burst damage early. Even with no items like her base, damages are pretty strong and you cannot get away from her. And with the Rocket Belt change, it just means she's. Her burst is just going to go up. Incredible. Incredibly higher. So her change with these changes are based on the nerf to the ability haste from Rocket Belt. So they're trying to keep her in with the Haste Nerf for Rocket belt. So I think this is going to be good. I think she's going to end up being stronger just because I think she'll maybe end up being played more. I don't see her very often anyway as it is, but she's very good. [00:19:47] Speaker D: I think most people actually max this E out. Second. Yeah, it does give duration increase on the root, but your damage on Q is so high and you are essentially a poke duelist. So a lot of people will be maxing out Q first. Oh yeah, it's Q E. So you're not going to. You are going to feel this change significantly longer than you will other duration changes. Because most supports usually level up. Things that have a duration increase. First. Yunara or Yunara Niko is relatively unique in that she isn't maxing it first for the most part. It is also bullshit that it gets stronger when it goes through minions. That is horseshit. She is one of the few people who has a mass aoe ability that can go through minions. And it gets better going through minions. Nah, I think it should be reversed this way. The empower should happen before it touches minions and then it unempowers once it hits a target. [00:20:43] Speaker E: I don't really see her enough to really have a really strong opinion for or against her. Other than the one game I played, she felt really strong. So especially being able to hide as a minion and surprise people. [00:20:55] Speaker D: Her highlight plays are disgusting. They've done significant changes to make it so that she can't be just like the single solo carry of the entire game half the time. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Fair enough. I guess I should wrap it up with Swain then. So Swain got two changes. They've tweaked his armor and Mr. [00:21:15] Speaker C: Values to try to skew him to be stronger in mid and weaker in bot lane. Just his base values. That's whatever makes sense. [00:21:22] Speaker B: And then they've changed his W, which is usually his second max. [00:21:28] Speaker C: This is the, like super long range circle he puts on the ground that hits a moment after a delay. [00:21:33] Speaker B: They buffed the cooldown on it at [00:21:35] Speaker C: all ranks and buffed the damage on everything past rank one. [00:21:39] Speaker B: I like this. It's the ability of his that's hard to land and he should be rewarded for hitting it. So, yeah, that's. [00:21:46] Speaker C: That's the swain changes. I have no complaints, no notes. [00:21:50] Speaker D: Yeah, it's pretty good. [00:21:52] Speaker B: All right, one of you guys put [00:21:54] Speaker C: a trinket tip in here. [00:21:55] Speaker D: Well, yes, but I also have one more champion. [00:21:56] Speaker C: You miss it. [00:21:57] Speaker B: Oh, yes, you do. [00:21:58] Speaker C: I did miss it. [00:21:59] Speaker D: Yunara is also getting a little set of double nerfs, and they're both nerfs, and their stated reason is exactly the right reason. I think usually when they give these little. Little blurbs, they. They say something, and when they do it, they. They haven't actually done what they wanted to say, but they really want to stop the handshake. Hyperscalers do nothing. We want that toned down a little bit. So the way that they're doing that is by making it so that her passive. Her Q has a passive portion to it, which is an extra set of passive damage on hit that's getting nerfed across all ranks. And then her W could stack with other slows, which became monumentally powerful. That just doesn't happen anymore. Her W now has a static slow. That is, I think, the true thing. Slight nerfs on her on hit damage. Yeah, that's. That's actually just good for mid game. But this. This removal of slow stacking is huge. That's really it with Ynara. That trinket tip was also mine. Okay, so I will go up into this, I saw something today that I have never seen done before. So a lot of champions can do interactions while doing one other ability. They can do one thing mid jump and then do a thing. Akali used to be known for it mid jump. She used to do throw a Q out and immediately destroy people. They've taken that interaction away from a lot of champions. One that I did not know was still in the game is for kha'. Zix. While his E is evolved, anytime he gets a kill, he gets a new jump, which means you can jump with Kha'. Zix. Mid jump, Q get a kill, and before that jump lands, initiate another jump so that you can jump in and out of a tower before it can target you. I had no idea Kha' Zix could do this. I'd never seen it done in 16 years. [00:23:55] Speaker E: You can actually even just triple jump [00:23:58] Speaker D: if you get enough kills. [00:23:59] Speaker E: I've seen several montages of just a Kha' Zix that just never stops jumping. Just. Just everywhere. [00:24:08] Speaker B: See, and this is why I like [00:24:11] Speaker C: doing this podcast with people who play different champions than I do, because it [00:24:15] Speaker B: would have never occurred to me to [00:24:16] Speaker C: even tell you guys this, because I'm just like, yeah, of course he can do that. I've been doing it for 15 years on this champion, or however long he's been out 13 years. [00:24:26] Speaker D: The main thing is that so many champions have had their interactions while moving stopped. And kha' Zix had another one that got removed. He can no longer do it with his W because he used to be able to do that. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Yep. [00:24:36] Speaker C: So although you can fire your W to get a kill and start your jump before it lands and double jump that way. [00:24:43] Speaker D: Yes. But the fact that you can Q mid jump changes a lot. [00:24:48] Speaker B: Yep. It's honestly, it's very similar to Tristana [00:24:51] Speaker C: getting a kill as she starts the rocket jump and then being able to rocket jump a second time once she lands. [00:24:57] Speaker B: Okay, so let's. Let's answer some listener questions. So our first question tonight. Oh, and reminder, guys, if you want your questions answered on the show, write into the fourwards podcastmail.com but our first question tonight comes from Reigns. Who writes if norms are full of higher ELO or lower ELO than me players, why would I not play ranked for a more balanced, more competitive environment for playing if I've already learned the [00:25:23] Speaker C: basics of my champion? [00:25:25] Speaker D: So you do still have MMR in normals. The more you play them, the better of a idea. It has one of the main reasons to play normals is that you will have a better queue time 9 times out of 10 because it's allowed to pick from a larger pool to grab than just the more restricted ELO that you have for actual ranked play. But also there's a lot of times when ranked gets more frustrating than normals and not having to deal with that is usually a trade off that you are making because people will both intentionally do things because they believe this is their special show. Ranked as mine, I must do things for me. But also people will intentionally sabotage more ranked games than they will normal games because sometimes people are assholes. So I have found that nine times out of ten, yes, normal games have a larger ELO sort of shift to them, but I find them to be more enjoyable games. [00:26:30] Speaker B: So there's another part of this. The best way to get better fast [00:26:36] Speaker C: in terms of actually playing PvP type [00:26:38] Speaker B: environments is to play against people who are better than you, but not so [00:26:43] Speaker C: much better that you're just blown out [00:26:44] Speaker B: of the water, which will happen pretty frequently in norms. So if you're playing just ranked and [00:26:51] Speaker C: assuming the ranked system is working correctly and matching you with people of appropriate [00:26:55] Speaker B: skill, you're only going to get to go up against people who are very [00:26:59] Speaker C: slightly better or worse than you. [00:27:02] Speaker B: If you're playing norms when you are playing to learn and playing ranked, just when you're looking to climb some of those norms, you're going to go up against people who are significantly better than [00:27:13] Speaker C: you and you can learn from them. [00:27:15] Speaker B: You can go, oh, the last time I played against a Yasuo, I absolutely fucking destroyed him on my champion. And this one did this differently and [00:27:24] Speaker C: was able to annihilate me instead. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Which is something you will not experience [00:27:28] Speaker C: typically when you're playing ranked. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Because frankly, unless you're talking about the [00:27:32] Speaker C: champions that have extremely low play rates, you can usually just be like, well, the last five Yasuo's I played against in this eloquence did this every time. So this one probably will as well. And you will probably be right. [00:27:46] Speaker D: The other thing about that is that when you see people in norms that have a large rank disparity than you, sometimes you are just going to actually beat the crap out of them. Either that's because they're in an off role and they're just playing for shits and giggles, or you will find that you are actually a better player than your rank suggests and you are having the ability to actually see. No, I can, I can hang with these people. [00:28:11] Speaker B: Okay, so Rain's next question is, how do you maintain agency when you need items, but your team is falling apart [00:28:18] Speaker C: around you and letting your other opponents get fed despite your lane opponent being neutral in lane. [00:28:22] Speaker B: So I'm interpreting this one to be more like you're playing bot lane and [00:28:26] Speaker C: the game has gone out of your control before you became strong boys. [00:28:29] Speaker D: That's hard. [00:28:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:30] Speaker B: If you're not playing a champion with [00:28:32] Speaker C: agency in their kit itself. [00:28:34] Speaker B: Like if you're playing just a hyperscaler, the answer is you don't. [00:28:37] Speaker C: You're just fucked. [00:28:38] Speaker B: If you're playing someone with agency yourself, [00:28:40] Speaker C: a playmaking champion, like let's say for example, Vayne, Draven, Ashe, Varus, those types of champions, you'll notice those are two very distinct, different types of playmaking ad carries. [00:28:54] Speaker B: You can look for opportunities to try to get shutdowns and get yourself back into the game. But also if the game is falling apart, your teammates probably aren't going to be helping you do that. [00:29:05] Speaker D: Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest things in competitive gameplay, is trying to make it so that you can have an impact when everything else is crumbling around you. It's insanely difficult to properly carry a game that is being lost. The main thing is really keeping your gold input up dying because you went in with everyone else, it will either lose you the game right up or put you on a continuous spiral downwards. So it sounds more like you're playing an ad carry here. Ad carries at least have the agency to be on the fringes of fights as opposed to being in the thick of them. For the most part. You can bail early on in a fight if you notice things are going really, really badly. I would, I would watch some old pro games that you notice that you know things were bad and switched around because they will give you insights into how to win fights. They'll show you how to do damage as high as possible. They'll show you how to pick up as much money as you possibly can from these things. Because that is one thing that, that pro players excel at is getting money when they shouldn't be. [00:30:16] Speaker C: Yep, you'll frequently you'll see comebacks happen in pro games where the team that [00:30:22] Speaker B: fell behind just starts loss stopping. [00:30:26] Speaker C: They just stop dying. They start playing more conservatively and they wait for their opponents to misplay and let them get a tower. Let them get something that lets them [00:30:35] Speaker B: hit an item spike where the goal difference stops mattering. If you're both at two items and they have a pickaxe over you, you [00:30:43] Speaker C: can win that fight. If you're at two items and they're [00:30:45] Speaker B: at three complete items. [00:30:47] Speaker C: You probably can't win that fight. [00:30:49] Speaker D: That requires a very specific champion for that to be the case. [00:30:52] Speaker C: Yes. [00:30:53] Speaker B: So that's kind of what you're looking for, is you want to find those windows like Stem the Bleeding, find gold where you can, and find those windows where your opponent has not spent their [00:31:03] Speaker C: gold to have the item advantage over you. They have a gold lead, but they don't have a power lead because you just spent and they're sitting on multiple thousands of gold. That kind of stuff. That's where you find ways to turn those games. [00:31:16] Speaker D: The other option is when you've noticed they have drastically overreached. They're chasing people far beyond their capability of doing. They're going for an objective when they don't actually have that far of a gold lead on you or they're not doing a proper setup. So you can pick people off from the sides or do extra damage while they're in a small area. Things like that are great times to try and get back in. [00:31:39] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:31:40] Speaker B: All right, let's move on to our next question. This one comes from Cinder, who writes I full clear on VI and Shyvana and do Scuttle Crab. Is Sheen my best purchase at this point? Is Sheen always the best purchase first? When you're building Triforce on a jungler, [00:31:54] Speaker D: it is almost never the correct choice to build Sheen first. [00:31:57] Speaker B: So the way to think of this and these are two champions who are [00:32:01] Speaker C: some of the best Sheen users in the jungle. To be clear. [00:32:03] Speaker D: Yes. [00:32:04] Speaker B: What Sheen gives you for 900 gold is 10 ability, haste and your base ad every time you're able to proc [00:32:14] Speaker C: it on one auto attack. [00:32:16] Speaker B: For context, if you're playing Shyvana at level 5, you have 74 base AD. That means Sheen is worth 74 damage each time you can proc Sheen realistically, you are proccing it maybe three times in a full rotation of your abilities because it's rarely optimal to stall your [00:32:35] Speaker C: abilities to line up perfectly with Sheen. [00:32:38] Speaker B: For that same 900 gold, you can buy two longswords and a dagger for 950, which you will have as a jungler on that full clear 2000. [00:32:50] Speaker D: Two daggers and two longswords and boots. [00:32:52] Speaker C: Yes. [00:32:53] Speaker B: Or if you have 1053 longswords, they all build into Trinity Force so that [00:32:58] Speaker C: none of those are wasted items. [00:33:00] Speaker B: And those will add damage on every single auto attack you do and scale [00:33:08] Speaker C: the ratios on your abilities. So using Shyvana as an example, instead [00:33:13] Speaker B: of getting an extra 74 damage, 2 to 3 times in 10 seconds you're getting an extra 20 damage per auto attack. [00:33:21] Speaker C: Auto attacking slightly faster if you got a dagger, but even if you didn't, if we're assuming boots was the third [00:33:26] Speaker B: item you got and then also adding 110% of your AD so another 22 [00:33:33] Speaker C: damage to each of your Qs themselves. Vi Similar kinds of math. [00:33:38] Speaker B: This is true across the board. And that's why Sheen first sucks. [00:33:44] Speaker C: Because adding that damage to those abilities is almost already making up for the loss of Sheen. And then you have all the odds [00:33:50] Speaker D: utilize Sheen first are so few and far between. There are people who usually use it on an ability consistently quickly and it does something for them that is more than just an extra proc. [00:34:05] Speaker C: Here they are Ezreal Gangplank and Smolder. [00:34:09] Speaker D: The other person like that sometimes will do. This is Nasus. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Yeah and all of them are for the same reason. [00:34:14] Speaker C: They don't care about their dps. [00:34:17] Speaker B: They are buying it for single hit [00:34:19] Speaker C: damage which is what Sheen does excel at early. [00:34:23] Speaker B: That's it. [00:34:24] Speaker C: It's worse for DPS in every regard. And As a jungler, DPS is what you care about 99% of the time for your first buy because you need to get your clear speed up. You need to get your DPS up so you can take that dragon when it spawns. [00:34:37] Speaker D: It may be correct to buy it as a second piece for that component item. Yes, but the very first piece almost never. [00:34:43] Speaker B: Yes. When you're already at the point where [00:34:46] Speaker C: you have your ultimate, you're looking at [00:34:48] Speaker B: getting the rest of the Trinity Force. [00:34:50] Speaker C: It can absolutely be worth buying the Sheen over buying the health item towards the phage for example. Maybe you just need the ability haste. It is 10 ability haste so there [00:35:01] Speaker B: are reasons to do that. Just please don't rush Sheen. [00:35:04] Speaker C: You're just gimping yourself. Just buy actual stats first. [00:35:09] Speaker B: So now we've got a question from Toast. Toast writes in low elo solo queue Is it easier to climb with scaling or early game junglers? [00:35:20] Speaker D: This is a very hard question to answer because it really depends on how you are seeing your games play out. If most of your games are just always going to 3540 minutes then yeah, you're gonna see it. Probably better to do some scaling junglers, but if you're seeing most of your games be 30 minutes or less, it might be beneficial to do something that's an early game jungler especially. Especially if you are capable of getting early kills and snowballing lanes. [00:35:52] Speaker B: Alright, hear me out. There are Two different answers to this [00:35:55] Speaker C: that I think are both true. [00:35:57] Speaker B: But are opposing low elo games tend to go more to late game to [00:36:02] Speaker C: where scaling comes into play more often than high elo games do. Just full stop. [00:36:09] Speaker B: Low elo players do not know how [00:36:10] Speaker C: to close games out. There is more opportunity for a scaling champion to be relevant because more mistakes are made. [00:36:17] Speaker B: However, early game snowball champions demoralize players incredibly hard. [00:36:26] Speaker C: And that's truer than anywhere in low elo people in low elo. One of the reasons people stay low elo is their mental game is weak. [00:36:35] Speaker B: And if you get three kills on a guy and he just fucking rage quits the game, you win. Yeah, my personal answer is play early game for that reason alone, because I'm [00:36:46] Speaker C: an emerald, which is like the bottom of higher elo and people still just absolutely cannot handle the concept of someone beating them and lose their mind. I'm finding more success playing not even just in jungle, but in jungle and in lanes. Playing something that is strong, early to mid and killing people doesn't matter that [00:37:09] Speaker B: kills aren't how you win the game. [00:37:10] Speaker C: Kills are how you break the enemy. Mental. [00:37:12] Speaker D: I think my favorite answer to this is playing a later game jungler who has very good early clears. And by that I mean early ganks. So people like Zac, who it doesn't matter if you're a late game champion, no one is seeing you jump over four walls and smack him and CC them seven times. [00:37:29] Speaker C: Yep, it's true. He also just clears really fast because of the way his kit works and it's very healthy. [00:37:36] Speaker D: And it's very hard to kill him in a jungle because he can just jump over three walls and no one's following him. [00:37:43] Speaker C: Yup. But again, it's one of those like, the correct way to play Zac is to use that jump power to gank a lane, gank the other lane, gank a third lane, gank repeatedly. [00:37:53] Speaker B: Not because that's necessarily the mathematical best [00:37:56] Speaker C: way to win the game, but because [00:37:58] Speaker B: that makes your opponent start raging at [00:38:00] Speaker C: their jungler and throwing a fit and tantrumming. [00:38:03] Speaker B: How many times have you played a game and your team is like, it [00:38:06] Speaker C: feels like their jungler is everywhere and our jungler isn't doing shit. Regardless of the actual facts of the game. [00:38:12] Speaker B: Playing an early game jungler lets you put that mentality, lets you put that [00:38:17] Speaker C: mentality onto the pedestal that those players think it belongs on. [00:38:21] Speaker D: Of course, your other option is just to take Lucian into the top lane. Screw playing jungle. He is both an early game player and a scaling champion. That ultimate just does damage at late game. You will destroy a tank instantly if they take the whole thing. [00:38:36] Speaker C: There you go, guys. [00:38:38] Speaker B: This has been episode 551 of the Four Wards podcast. I've been Jack Zoman for Mica, many names, and for Pillow Pet, who's having [00:38:45] Speaker C: some tech issues, but he'll be back as soon as he can. [00:38:48] Speaker B: We'll see you next time. [00:38:50] Speaker D: Good night everybody. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Bye bye. [00:38:52] Speaker F: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our Patreon at patreon.com theforwardspodcast. And of course, send your questions to [email protected] so we can answer them live on the show. That's the [email protected].