The Four Wards Podcast - Episode 553: Patching the Swiss Stage

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to the Four Wards Podcast. Hey, what's up? [00:00:08] Speaker B: It's Eric Bra, voice of Draven, Jerks and Velcas. [00:00:13] Speaker A: And you're listening to the Four Wards [00:00:15] Speaker C: podcast here to help you move forward in League. Hello and welcome to episode 553 of the Four Wards podcast. I'm your host as usual. I'm Jack Zoman and I've got with me three other wards to help you move forward in League of Legends. Of course we have Mike of many names. [00:00:50] Speaker B: We are Four Wards once more. [00:00:51] Speaker C: It's true. We've also got Pillow Pat. [00:00:55] Speaker D: Hello, I am back this week and [00:00:58] Speaker C: also back this week we've got Witch at Black Mass. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Hi guys. I promised that I would try to be better. I'm trying to be better. [00:01:06] Speaker C: Okay, we're just happy to have you guys. We are the four Words podcast. We have a Discord. Come join the Discord. Come hang out, come play games with us. It is a great time. Been playing a lot of norms, a lot of mayhem, a lot of watching Worlds as a group because Worlds is going on. We'll talk more about that later. Link is in the episode description. We look forward to seeing you there. Some of us also stream on Twitch. I can be found at Twitch TV Jacksonman where honestly it's going to be a lot of Super Metroid for the next month because I'm in a tournament. You should listen to the next 8bit to 4k to hear more about that. Mike can be found at Twitch TV Mikeo many names and Pillow Pet can be found at Twitch TV Pillowpet and of course I want to give a shout out to our patrons who support the show at the shoutout Tier Codex, Ninja, Pillow Pet, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Skippy as Esquire. Thank you guys. If you want to support the podcast, head over to patreon.com theforwardspodcast $1 a month just tells us that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio of our prep work before each show. And $10 a month gets you that same exclusive feed. And we'll shout your name out during the intro to every episode. And all of the Patreon benefits also apply to our general gaming podcast. Check out From 8 Bit to 4K on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Last but not least listeners. Just cause we had leftover questions last week doesn't mean it's okay that none of you wrote in anything this week. We need more questions. We have None. I want y' all to write in to the Fourwards podcastmail.com with your questions so we can answer them on the show or drop them in the question submission channel of the Discord. But seriously, please don't make us go two weeks in a row with no questions. I don't know what will happen. [00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we. The show might go off the rails a little bit. [00:02:59] Speaker B: You know, we'll be shifting genres if that happens. [00:03:04] Speaker C: All right, guys, thankfully this week is a patch week, so we do actually have something to talk about. I want to kick it off with some really rapid fire changes because there are some item changes that I think you should be aware of, but I don't think they actually change your decision making in most cases. Riot has changed Bastion Breaker. They have nerfed the item's power, but made it so that the objective proc that you get lasts until you use it. Instead of lasting for 90 seconds, which is huge, it's actually usable. They've buffed DawnCorps AP, they've nerfed the gold cost on Gluttonous Greaves, and they finally gave Hubris a ranged and melee split. It's slightly stronger for melee. You basically start plus one stack from where you did before, and noticeably weaker for ranged users. You probably won't see much more Jhin or MF building Hubris. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Significant Nerf that. It's kind of pointless on them now. You would build a different lethality item. [00:04:06] Speaker C: So, Mike, speaking of building different, who do you want to talk about first? [00:04:11] Speaker B: You know, that really doesn't do so much of it. That's a bad segue. I don't got either of that. [00:04:17] Speaker C: Talk about Zinn. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Fine. I don't know if you're going to do a much different building with him, but yeah, Zinn's got a couple of changes that are essentially trying to make him slightly more towards the AD side than the AP side. Since they buffed the ap, they're giving him a better ratio on his Q and they're giving him slightly worse attack attack speed scaling with his audacious charge. It's not a significant amount, but it's enough of an A diminish that you're not getting a ton of that is [00:04:54] Speaker C: better attack speed scaling on his audacious charge. [00:04:58] Speaker B: I'm sorry, you're. You're right. One. One per four instead of one per five. Yes, I. I flipped that backwards in my head. You are benefiting more from things that give you attack speed with its attack speed scaling, which only happens when you do your Charge. So it's not like a permanent buff, but it. [00:05:17] Speaker A: You. [00:05:17] Speaker B: If you get enough cooldown reduction, you essentially have that going all the time. I. I like this. This change. It's not enough of a buff to give AD Zinn too much power, because Adz in is still powerful, but it doesn't give AP Zin too much extra power because there aren't enough sources of attack speed in AP builds to make this too powerful. It will work with the. The AP on hit builds that you see where you get static plus Nashers, plus that item, Dusk and Dawn. Dusk and dawn is one of them. It's not the one I'm thinking of. The one that makes it such. You only have two hits every. It's the attack. [00:06:03] Speaker C: Rageblade. [00:06:04] Speaker B: Rageblade. Goonsao's Gunsau's Rageblade. That's is a better combination with Goonsao's Rageblade, but those are more on hit builds than they are AP builds. So this. This really shifting him away from that pure ap. I heal you. Good judge. [00:06:22] Speaker C: Fair enough. All right, pillow, You've picked two different beefy top laners, different flavors of beefy. Which one do you want to talk about first? [00:06:31] Speaker D: I think I'm just gonna bring up Darius first because it's the simplest. So Darius cooldown on his Q got changed, and this is his first max. So it was 9 seconds scaling to 5 seconds, and now it's 9 seconds scaling to 4 seconds, with the only cooldown change being in the last rank, [00:06:52] Speaker C: which is really weird. [00:06:55] Speaker D: Yes, it's only one second. And this is going to, I think, end up being significant because 1 second at that max rank is equivalent to 25% cooldown reduction, which he already built some cooldown reduction. So he's gonna have his Q up a lot more going into team fights. So he's gonna be a little bit more of a juggernaut Healy monster if he hits those outer rings. The whole thing was like they're. He's wanting. They're wanting him to make him a more durable threat, which this is. Will do exactly that. And if you don't know, Darius Q has two parts. It has the outer ring, which does a adds his passive stack and gives him a heal, and the heal is increased based off how many passive stacks he has or how many people he hits up to a max. I can't remember what the max is. It's like 40. Maybe it's strong 45. [00:07:53] Speaker C: I want to say it's like 36. If you hit three targets, which is A crazy amount. Yeah, no, it's so. [00:08:01] Speaker D: It's. Oh my God. [00:08:02] Speaker C: It is 51%. [00:08:03] Speaker D: Okay, 51. [00:08:05] Speaker A: What the. [00:08:07] Speaker D: It's. It's pretty significant. And it also spreads his passive. So if he gets one passive on. If you don't know what his passive does, he gets bleed stacks. Stacks up to five, which increases his 80 and it puts a bleed stack. And then once he gets max stacks, any ability he uses on you, as long as it hits the bleed rate, the, like the thing that spreads the bleed, it'll spread that to you with an immediate five stacks. So that's where you'll see a lot of flashy plays. Like then Alistair is fighting him 1v1 and he gets a 5 stack and then he Q flashes into a team fight and then all of a sudden he's Dunkathon. I can just see this. This Q is going to get down to like two seconds and it's not going to be hard to get there. [00:08:57] Speaker B: Having the last rank be a 2 second drop as opposed to every other rank being 1 second fucks with my head so hard. [00:09:06] Speaker C: I hate that so much. [00:09:07] Speaker D: I mean, no, every rank is the exact same. Every rank's the exact same. Except for the last rank. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Except for the last one. Yeah. [00:09:15] Speaker D: Which, I mean, yeah, I see what you're saying. Like 9876 and then 5 and now it's 9876 and then 4. This is going to be a lot of early power for him. It is his first max. [00:09:28] Speaker B: The, the way he spreads the five stacks is only when he gets a kill on his ultimate or if he [00:09:33] Speaker C: five stacks on a champion. [00:09:35] Speaker D: Or if five stacks on a champion [00:09:36] Speaker B: or plus five stacks on a champion. Yeah. [00:09:38] Speaker D: Once Z maxes his passive out, then he can spread it. [00:09:41] Speaker B: However, he gains nox, then he gains the ad, then he gains the other thing. [00:09:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why Darius is like particularly good into melee comps versus like ranged because it's really hard to stack versus range that people can cut you. Like as Pillow was saying, like stacking on Alistar and then basically going, I'm gonna kill the ad carry now. [00:09:58] Speaker D: Like why? [00:10:00] Speaker C: You see the Darius highlight plays where he fights a tank to get five stacks and then flash Q's and ults three people dead. [00:10:09] Speaker D: I mean, I think Jax has probably seen me do that. Jax has probably seen me do it 100 times. It's, it's, it's so fun to do it. Like you think Darius is dead and then all of a sudden he hits a three man Q@ max stacks and then. [00:10:23] Speaker B: And his health skyrockets. [00:10:24] Speaker D: He's back. He's back. It's a. It's basically an Aatrox heel but it's illegal. I mean it's, it's a very simple change. I think it's going to be more impactful than what it looks like on paper. So Darius, y'. [00:10:40] Speaker B: All. Darius might just be back in actual games across the board. [00:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah, unfortunately. All right. Which I'm gonna just leave it up to you. Which one do you want to talk about? [00:10:52] Speaker A: And talk about misfortune. They say that like the reason why they're making the change is because of the hubris changes that Jackson mentioned. Pr. But they're giving her little slight buffs. Her E is going up base damage wise because she doesn't. It's ranked off of like ap. In addition it's her usual last rank up ability. It's not like actually like her first currently at least. So it's like it goes from 70. It was at 70 for first rank. Now it's up to 90. So this is a little extra damage early. And then for her R which is like her main ability that she uses, it was 130% critical strike damage. Now it's 145 critical strike damage. And I think there was always this argument for me at least whenever I've seen MMF where oh and then also like your percent damage crit is also up for like the scaling of the ability as well. But I think there's always an argument for MF to actually build crit rather than full lethality because I feel like her damage was high enough to be able to do so. And now there's kind of leaning into that where you can actually go, you can still go lethality, it's completely fine. But you can also go into a more crit oriented build and she can be this kind of like lane bully esque type champion in Lane because she's extremely mobile as a champion that it's nice to see a little bit quality of life buffs for mf in my opinion. I, I think that she's very underutilized right now. [00:12:28] Speaker B: So she has, she has so much flexibility because of how easy it is to build multiple different first items that are all very powerful. As a lane bully. If you want to just make sure no one ever pushes you to land, you can start with Bloodthirster. If you want to rush a kill Lane you had hubris. If you want to go for crit you have pure damage Crate items you can go for. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And typically you don't build any attack speed. You just go like damage. Because her W attack speed steroid is enough similar to like Tristana. Tristana builds one attack speed item really. But yeah, she has a lot of build variety. I think that with the Hubris Nurse, I think it'll be a little bit less of a goodbye for actually now I think you should be looking to itemize like crit or bloodthirster first in my opinion. But we'll see how it goes. [00:13:20] Speaker C: Yeah. For me the question is, do these crit buffs give her enough to justify skipping the bloodthirster and going straight for crit? [00:13:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's possible. [00:13:29] Speaker C: Collect collector or hex optics first kind of builds. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Yep. [00:13:34] Speaker C: All right, well, I got some champions to talk about. I'm so fucking happy that Lee Sin is finally getting meaningful nerfs. I don't understand why it took so long, but Riot has finally realized that a hyper mobile assassin bruiser is kind of a problem when he's also the most popular champion in the game still. Lee Sin is literally like. I think he's been top five popularity since his release. [00:14:04] Speaker B: Him and Yasuo basically. Him, Yasuo and Zed. [00:14:07] Speaker D: Yep. [00:14:07] Speaker C: Like literally one of the most popular champions in the game forever. So they've nerfed his safeguard his dash to an ally and give them a shield or dash to a ward to escape skill by a second cooldown. They bug fixed his E to where it will no longer reveal invisible enemies if they go invisible after being hit by the E because it wasn't supposed to. And they have meaningfully nerfed the base damage on his ultimates, knocking 25 damage per rank. So a total of 75 damage off of a level 16. Lee Sinnoh. I'm so happy about this. It still hits like a fucking truck. It has a 200% bonus AD ratio and a percent max health ratio or percent current health, I forget which, but it at least doesn't do as much. Oh no, it's. It's max health because that's the the projectile. It's not the initial target. Now he only does 550 plus 200% bonus ad when he presses R only. Yeah, for context, a fully stacked darius ult does 750 150% bonus ad. Now that's true damage admittedly, but that's fully stacked. Lee Sin does 550 plus 200% bonus ad just willy nilly. No setup, just press the button. I fucking hate Lee Sin. I'm so glad he got nerfed. He needs more nerfs. They need to nerf his fucking Q. [00:15:40] Speaker B: That execute's stone powerful. [00:15:43] Speaker A: All right. [00:15:43] Speaker B: Speaking of powerful executes, Mike, that is a much better, much better segue. Okay. Yeah. They're messing with Lock again. And they're interesting, interesting changes. They're changing both his mana growth and that. He's just getting less mana. And they're also changing the mana refund on his unspent queues so he gets slightly less and slightly more mana depending on how much you were going to get. A little less early, a little more late, and cooldown reduction. A little less early, a little more late. His W is getting a suite of nerfs, which is the ability that I think probably has the biggest problem with him because he is incredibly safe with it. So he's getting straight up 10 mana cost increase across the board. Great change. They are lowering the base health bottom. He can restore by a little bit. So he has a smaller beginning and then goes up to the same. And then he has a current health store which was level based, but is now AP based with its bonus and has a slight higher overall. This is a weird one because how his Soul Ignition worked was essentially just pure level based. And now they're giving him a bit more essentially pain if he, if he fucks it up. He hurts himself much more if he fucks it up. And it looks like he can potentially get more back at the very end of the game when he has more AP. But by the time you're level 18 and everyone else is level 18 and you have the full suite of items, Lock has started to not be a problem because everyone else can one shot him now. [00:17:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Our issues with Lock do not revolve around his late game. They revolve around how safe he is in laning phase. And these are targeted nerfs specifically at that. Because what Locks were doing is firing one Q and if it missed, just don't fire the rest and you get almost all the mana back. And then when it hit, they'd press W, go in, get a really good trade and be healthy because the W was so fucking strong. And both of those components of his laning phase have now been nerfed meaningfully. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Yes. And they're both buffed at the end of the game when he was weakest. [00:18:10] Speaker C: Yes. [00:18:10] Speaker B: He is also getting a just pure buff to the late game of his E, which was either your second or third max based on the what you were doing. His blink damage is meaningful. So you were probably maxing the second. It's getting a base damage increase by its final rank. Nothing at first rank but another 20 at max and it's getting another 10ap ratio bonus which is a quarter of its current damage and the AP ratio up. You you're doing more than just your triple Q pop. This is a meaningful amount of extra damage. He is going to be an assassin at the end of the game now instead of just important. [00:18:50] Speaker C: Yeah important to note this is only on the dash portion. Not on the blink portion. [00:18:55] Speaker B: On the dash portion because there are [00:18:57] Speaker C: the first half of his E which [00:19:00] Speaker B: was the harder portion to properly utilized because the dash is so powerful. Yep, it's a good set of changes. It's not exactly what we wanted but to be honest this might make him not too nerfed like he sees play but he's not the God killer he was at the beginning of the game and it gives him a meaningful end game. [00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah it seems like a better better curve like for the champion so. [00:19:28] Speaker B: And it doesn't invalidate him. Those is the main thing I was [00:19:30] Speaker C: thinking of pretty much. All right. Pillow talk about curving Sion Ults. [00:19:36] Speaker D: So yeah this one to me looked like my one of my favorite changes because I like playing Scion. I picked two champions that I like to play so I enjoy talking about them. Sion got some durability buffs. Not a whole lot but a decent amount. His base base stats was his health was 65655 plus 87 health a level and now he's getting 95 health a level which is pretty significant. I mean that's 12 extra health. When you stack that onto his passive it means quite a bit. So he's going to have at level 18 a couple hundred more health. Well 20 because his yeah true. So he'll have close whatever math 12 times that by 20. [00:20:25] Speaker C: Bold of you to assume he's top lane with all the fucking mid lane and jungle surrounds we've been seeing lately. [00:20:31] Speaker B: Fair he is most commonly thought of as a top laner. [00:20:34] Speaker D: So his his main change comes as to his R. It's getting a buff [00:20:38] Speaker B: I think and a nerf. [00:20:39] Speaker D: It reads like it. I'm trying to understand their wording but I'm thinking that so it's damage increases now over it's his how his alt works is he charges it. It's a slow. He increases his speed. Damage is increased by the longer he's in the duration of his ultimate fun fact if he has movement speed increases his max speed he reaches is A lot quicker in his ult. So it was 0 Mac increase damage to 166.67% of his base damage and then 0 to 100% of the ratio damage. And I think if I'm. Are they just changing the ratio damage or they just making it a flat damage increase? [00:21:28] Speaker C: They're giving it. It's a damage increase at all points. So for the base damage, it's slightly higher for a fully channeled alt. [00:21:37] Speaker D: Okay, so this is just both together. Got it. [00:21:40] Speaker C: Yep. [00:21:41] Speaker D: So everything now is just going to be scaling from 0 to 200%. So his ratio is getting doubled and his base damage is going up by. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Was that 23.3333? [00:21:53] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. 33.33. Repeating, of course. [00:21:58] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:22:00] Speaker C: The big part is if you're building ad, his alt is going to hit like a freight train because an absolute truck massively boosted the boss. [00:22:10] Speaker D: Extremely happy here. [00:22:11] Speaker C: If you're charging for three seconds, which is the time it takes to get the full value. Now get 120% bonus AD on your ult, whereas before you were only getting 80%. [00:22:21] Speaker D: Does his damage to object towers. And is that based off his ad? So is he going to become like the boss special? Like is getting buffed here? [00:22:32] Speaker C: I assume so. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Well, I mean, did the charge do damage to towers? [00:22:38] Speaker C: Yes, [00:22:40] Speaker D: it does splash damage to towers. [00:22:42] Speaker B: To a tower, sure. [00:22:44] Speaker D: Like. So the boss special is he waits for a team fight to break out in the base and then just charges the Nexus turrets and does giant splash damage to both of them. Basically almost one shotting them and ends the game. [00:23:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:02] Speaker D: So yeah, I'm gonna be playing. I. I love playing Lethality Scion and I've told Jax that several times. I love Lethality Scion just because the damage is so absurd. So I'm exc. Be a nuclear Lethality Scion. [00:23:18] Speaker A: It's. It's fun for sure. [00:23:20] Speaker D: It is very. It requires a very like. It is good into certain matchups and I will die on the hill. That is the best build into a Gwen. [00:23:30] Speaker C: I mean into a Gwen. Yes. Because Gwen is also. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I've heard like versus Aatrox as well. Because like as if you go tank vs. Aatrox. Aatrox can just heal on you for definitely. Yeah, exactly. But if you play brushes and are actually ad, you can actually have kill threat on Aatrox. So. [00:23:49] Speaker D: And if you play into a tank, you're trolling like it's your response in a tank. Killers controlling. It's only good in certain matchups unless they're a team full of squishies and now you can just blow them up. Doesn't have to be good. [00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:24:05] Speaker D: You could just be a suicide missile with a second life. [00:24:09] Speaker B: Be careful about that because you are not labeled as the boss. If you are consistently killing yourself doing these things, the game will notice and it will give you penalties. [00:24:20] Speaker C: Yep. [00:24:20] Speaker D: Jax, didn't we face somebody and he went like oh and 74 against you. [00:24:24] Speaker C: It wasn't that bad. But yes, I did absolutely beat the ever loving fuck out of a scion not that long ago. [00:24:30] Speaker D: Yeah. We were in a game I think and he just kept inting you mid. [00:24:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I wasn't even playing a mage. That should be good against him. I think I was playing LeBlanc that game or something stupid like that. [00:24:42] Speaker B: You were playing LeBlanc and I remember that game. I was watching it waiting for you guys to finish. Yeah, don't. [00:24:50] Speaker D: So for me this is a fun change because I enjoy what this. What this change is promoting. But it also is a buff to Juggernaut Sion because the damage is gonna be higher if you're. If you want to play that boring play style. [00:25:09] Speaker C: Speaking of boring play style which. Why have you picked this champion in your list? [00:25:14] Speaker A: That's not. It is not boring. I will die on that hill. It is fun. I wanted to talk about the new new changes there. They made some changes to basically buff them from the Hextech rocket. Built changes they made earlier where they nerfed it because every single mage mid lane was building that item. Coincidentally that was like one of the only AP jungle like AP starting items items. Unless you're going full AP on NuNu. That's. Nunu would actually build consistently. So they're giving just quality of life changes to his R of which I think it's kind of wild because we were talking about Lee Sin like base damage like stuff. [00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Nunu actually has one of the most crazy. Obviously it's like super telegraphed in the sense of like what it wants to do and what you're doing. But the base damage on it is ridiculous. [00:26:09] Speaker B: He has the highest base damage on an ultimate in the game, period. [00:26:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's like rank one at full charge is it went from 625 to 750 and that's rank one and then it from 925 or rank two it's 1100 and then from 1275 to 1450 and the AP ratio is still the same which is still crazy. It's 300%. [00:26:33] Speaker B: Yeah. We were talking Darius at 750 for his maximum Ult. Yeah, that's the base Ult on Nunu. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So the reason why I wanted to bring this champion up is that I am a big fan of playing champions that aren't that people don't typically see a lot. Like, that's the reason why I always had picked fiddle because people don't like playing against fiddle because they don't. One, they don't really know how to play against it. And two, like, if you are actually good and proficient on the champion, you'll win more games on it because people don't know how to play against it. And Nunu is one of those things where people go into a game and they think that either you're going to get the most disgusting troll Nunu player ever, or if you actually practice and get good on the champion, I think that there is a reward of actually getting good on the champion because people don't respect Nunu. So these buffs are nice in that sense. [00:27:22] Speaker C: Yeah, fair enough. I still just don't find him fun [00:27:26] Speaker B: to play, but whatever, he's better than he was. [00:27:29] Speaker A: Do you like the old Nunu, though? Like, that's more boring, I think, if you're. [00:27:34] Speaker B: If you. [00:27:35] Speaker A: If you think I like old Nunu better personally. But I do think it was more boring than the Nunu that we have. [00:27:41] Speaker C: My wife liked old Nunu because she could play him support. [00:27:44] Speaker B: He was. He was a wacky support. [00:27:47] Speaker C: Literally one world's playing support. That's where the new new World skin from TPA is. He was the support. All right, I got one more change I want to highlight, and not because I think it's actually all that meaningful, but because I think it's hilarious. So the World's patch was 26.20 in 26.19. Riot nerfed Ryze's top end so that he would scale worse. Now we're in 2621 and they're just giving him his scaling back and then some. They've increased the ratio on his bonus damage on his Q when he hits someone who's marked with his E back to where it was at level 16. And also they've given him a slightly higher AP ratio on his Rune prison. [00:28:31] Speaker A: Why? [00:28:32] Speaker C: Because this isn't the world's patch anymore and they can safely buff Ryze without him taking over pro play. [00:28:37] Speaker B: And the move speed got better on that Q. God damn. [00:28:40] Speaker C: The move speed also did get better on the Q slightly, but I think that's the least important to these Changes. Raya is constantly in a balancing act of how do we make rise viable in solo queue without him completely taking over pro play. And I think at this point they've landed on. We just buff him after the worlds patch where there's no pro play after this patch. Yeah, I fully extremely telling whenever by 27:1. [00:29:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's extremely telling whenever a champion like Azir, like Arise can sit at a 47% win rate. That's pretty much all ranks or something like that. And Riot has to be like, yep, that's about right. Because it has to be lower than 50% because if it's above then pro players are just going to abuse the shit out of it. [00:29:25] Speaker B: So yeah, there are. There are certain champions that are not made for you them to be. And yep, Ryze is one of them. Even though I love playing Ryze, I cannot get the full power out of a rise that a pro player can. [00:29:38] Speaker C: Oh, not even close. What is my win rate on Ryze? I know I have played him 36%. I should not play Ryze in solo queue. What is it? In solo queue because most of those are probably norms. I've only played him once in solo queue and I lost. Don't play Ryze, guys. Zero percent even with these buffs. All right, which you have a surprise question for. [00:30:00] Speaker B: We have one other change. [00:30:01] Speaker C: Oh, right, you're right. [00:30:04] Speaker B: So this one is more of a change because you should know that Taric is getting some weird quality of life changes because they're not immediately intuitive from before. So they're getting more intuitive now. So his Q specifically when you are targeting allies and they are untargetable, it will now also still cast. The fact that it didn't. If you had your abilities on your ally and it didn't go for them was weird. Same thing with his. Essentially same problem, same answer. You can now actively use your dazzle from an untargetable ally. Same thing with your ult. Everything that combines together from that W where you were placing something on someone, if they became untargetable, you couldn't properly cast from them. Now it does because you have targeted them with your ability before with your W. Now all of the other things that chain off of that will always go because you have previously targeted them. This is just quality of life. It means when you cast the button it goes off. [00:31:04] Speaker A: Which is nice. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:05] Speaker C: Now this is how it should have always worked. Honestly. [00:31:08] Speaker B: Yes, it was not intuitive before. This is a holdover from old programming on him. [00:31:14] Speaker D: It's. [00:31:14] Speaker B: It's just Better now. But now what were we going to give it to? Which. [00:31:18] Speaker C: What's your surprise question for us? [00:31:21] Speaker A: Okay. I wanted to ask you guys, when you guys think of League of Legends, champion skins and champions in general, there's some skins that you think before, like the natural, like, base skin model, for example, Muay Thai, Lee Sin or Super Galaxy Rumble. Like, those two champions are just like this. Like, I think that you. When you think of Rumble, most pro players have that skin on just because that's just. It just feels good to play that skin. Do you guys have any skins or like, skins that you like that you just innately think of the champion whenever or like, you just think of it over the baseline skin of the. Of the champion? [00:31:59] Speaker B: I suppose I. I gotta think. I think I do. Yeah. [00:32:03] Speaker D: I like to be God King Darius. And the other one for Garen, what is it? Fallen King or. [00:32:11] Speaker B: Well, they're both. They both have God King. [00:32:13] Speaker D: They just came out with like. But the God Kings, like, it's. To me, it's awesome. And for like those two. And then like Renekton, to me, I love his infernal because it just. It looks sharp. [00:32:25] Speaker B: I don't know the last time I saw a base renekton. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Feels good. [00:32:28] Speaker B: You are not wrong there. [00:32:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, I think when I think of Lee Sin, I think of Muay Thai all the time. Like, that's the only skin that I think of. But that may. Like, I know that it's changed because there has been good skins like Stormbringer and like, there's other like, ones that like, people play. But I. I just the. The animation originally of like, Muay Thai, like, walking and like, I don't know. I always think of that skin. [00:32:50] Speaker D: For Omega Squad, Teemo, I have three. [00:32:54] Speaker B: They're all ancient skins. [00:32:56] Speaker C: Okay. [00:32:57] Speaker B: There is Brolaf, who I see as more than Olaf. There is. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Okay, Yeah, I can see that. [00:33:03] Speaker B: There's Corporate Mundo and there's Gentleman Cho'. Gah. Those three, I see more than I ever think of their original character. [00:33:11] Speaker A: I didn't even think of, like, my main champion. Surprise party. Fiddlesticks is like the only skin that's like the skin for Fiddlesticks, in my opinion. Like, it's like, so good. [00:33:21] Speaker C: See, the problem for me is the champions that I'm trying to think of that I'm like, oh, it would be this are really just because I'm me. Like, the Pentakill skins for Mordekaiser and Yorick. [00:33:34] Speaker B: I do have another one. [00:33:35] Speaker A: That one's pretty cool, though. [00:33:37] Speaker B: I don't know a single person who plays the base Gangplank because he got a re when Gangplank got his weird rework. Anyone who owned Gangplank also got the previous skin because of the weird storyline for Captain Gangplank. [00:33:50] Speaker C: Captain Gangplank. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Okay, on that note, then, Captain Gangplank and traditional Trundle. Yeah. [00:33:56] Speaker A: Yeah, traditional Trundle. You have to play traditional Trundle. [00:33:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm sorry. Traditional Trundle is just straight up the only trundle skin I am willing to use because it has the old voice lines and I hate Trundle's current voice with a passion. It's so fucking grating. Whereas old Trundle is stupid and hilarious and weird. [00:34:18] Speaker A: Wait, I didn't even know that. That is. I always. I've always played with that skin, so I don't know. [00:34:22] Speaker C: Yeah, if you play any Trundle skin other than traditional Trundle, you get the, like, I'm the troll king, Troll King kind of voice lines. And if you play traditional Trundle, you get, I'm not heartless. I love beatings. [00:34:39] Speaker B: Time to troll. [00:34:40] Speaker C: Yeah, Traditional Trundle is so much better. I'm glad he got the gameplay updates he got when they gave him his visual update. I just wish they had kept the goofiness. [00:34:52] Speaker B: I do have one that's a visual skin. Oh, go for it. [00:34:56] Speaker D: I was gonna say. Just speaking of Trundle, I'm gonna throw in a trinket tip, but I'll wait till after the. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Yeah, the skins. The. The actual skin that I also think of for the champion is Meowkai. Put him in his pajamas. [00:35:06] Speaker D: I mean, the really soul one, the. The Storm Dragon Aurelion soul just kind of makes sense too. [00:35:11] Speaker B: Oh, I. I bounce between, like four different Aurelion Soul skins, so. [00:35:14] Speaker D: But I. I use his Ink Shadow. [00:35:15] Speaker C: But how about Santa Braum? [00:35:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that one's, like, so good too. [00:35:21] Speaker B: I think I have two or three. [00:35:22] Speaker D: I know Gragas has got one, but I can't. I can't think of all the Gragas skins right now. [00:35:25] Speaker C: The problem is Gragas has so many of them that you can't just pick. [00:35:30] Speaker B: There is a correct Grag now and forevermore. And if you did get it. Yes, there's a correct Gragas skin. Explain Shuhei Fnatic Gragas. [00:35:40] Speaker C: Alright, I'll acknowledge that there's a correct Gragas skin. I'll acknowledge that one. All right. Speaking of honoring pro players, since none of y' all wrote in to theforwardspodcastmail.com we have no questions to talk about, so we're gonna talk about pro play. Deal with it. Me and Mike have been loving Worlds. Pillow hasn't been watching much in which you've been watching A fair bit. [00:36:05] Speaker A: I have been. Yeah. [00:36:07] Speaker C: So we're gonna talk about just the first two days of Swiss Stage because I know Mike has not watched the games that happened today on Sunday as we are recording this. And I want to kick it off with what was your biggest surprise from the first two days of Swiss Stage? [00:36:23] Speaker B: That's easy. [00:36:25] Speaker C: Easy. [00:36:25] Speaker B: Biggest surprise was McCoy. McCoy has played masterfully and I want [00:36:32] Speaker C: to draw the distinction because there were two Western teams that were 20 at this point. McCoy and Lyon both 20 to their first two matches. But lion did it playing against team secret. Whales and KC, who are the Southeast Asia number one, to be fair. And KC, who's the number three from LEC. [00:36:54] Speaker B: TW is a good team. [00:36:56] Speaker C: Yes. McHoy did it by beating BLG and then also playing against CFO. [00:37:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So one of those is a higher quality than the other. However, like kc, also not a slouch, beat al, so beating KC in a really good match still pretty fucking like. It's the biggest surprise is how well the Western teams in general are doing versus the Eastern teams. They are pure competitive matches. And the games that they have actively lost have been games where it has either fallen apart on one single team fight and immediately ended a la G2 and DK, or they've gone really well back and forth, back and forth. But there's just been a very, very slow gold increase to one team. [00:37:45] Speaker C: The. The. The spa. Saucy bitch in me loves that. Team Liquid has played the exact same teams as mcoi, just in reverse order and lost both times. Fuck Team Liquid. [00:37:58] Speaker B: They. They were also good games though. Liquid looked decent. They didn't look as good as the other teams though. [00:38:05] Speaker C: So that's biggest surprises. What was your biggest disappointment? [00:38:11] Speaker B: There's a single game and it's. Look, go for it. I've talked a lot. Go for it. [00:38:17] Speaker A: I think for me, I mean, I'm a big Tarzan fan, so I've always wanted to see him succeed at Worlds. And so he came in as first seed on al and I was expecting more out of that squad and them losing out doesn't feel particularly great. [00:38:34] Speaker B: Yeah, them being 02 is astounding. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:37] Speaker B: But then again, one Chinese team always needs to do it. So this year it's al I. Yeah, [00:38:44] Speaker C: I think Al has to be the biggest disappointment. Just they literally are the Chinese number one seed and they came in and lost to the number three from Europe and the number three from China who is playing with a substitute top laner. Admittedly that substitute is 369. He's always been incredible, man. Has been to Worlds many, many times. But also you're literally the higher ranked team from that same region and you can't beat them this time. [00:39:13] Speaker B: Haven't beaten them in previous games. [00:39:14] Speaker A: In addition to that, they're playing against TEs, which is, you know, this meme of going to any sort of like international event where everyone who watches LPL is like, please for level God, don't send this team. [00:39:28] Speaker C: Yep. [00:39:28] Speaker A: You know, and they, they're doing okay, you know, so they're. [00:39:32] Speaker C: They're in a good spot right now. [00:39:34] Speaker B: My biggest disappointment is DK in general. Why the fuck are they 20 having lost 2 separate games to win it at the last second. Both of those, the teams that they beat, I wanted the other team to win. [00:39:49] Speaker C: So it is, it is the out disappointment games because he doesn't feel like they should have won against both G2 and T1. [00:39:57] Speaker B: G2 should have won that game from [00:39:59] Speaker C: the jaws of defeat. [00:40:00] Speaker B: T1 should have won that game. [00:40:01] Speaker A: Just played on Elder, man. Yeah, just fight on Elder. [00:40:03] Speaker B: And they won the exact same way in two games at the exact same place. [00:40:10] Speaker C: That's fair enough. I do think the biggest shocker to me has just been that G2 looks like the worst of the three EU teams. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Yes. No. To me, like G2 has always. They usually do play a little bit better in international, but the teams that they were playing with, both MCOI and kc gave it to them during this year and that was at G2 at their best. And G2 lost that first series versus Casey, I think. Or am I mixing that up? That was the reverse. [00:40:44] Speaker A: I've just hated the way that they've approached draft. Like, I'm sorry, game. Game one going into Worlds. They're giving Showmaker, for love of God, Syndra. They're giving Syndra over to Showmaker. And Victor in that game is just going, okay, I can exist when it's, you know, historically Showmaker's best champion. Genuinely, like it is his best champion. [00:41:08] Speaker B: That is his champion from the video. Yeah, that's right. Wow. [00:41:12] Speaker A: And in addition to that, they have an opportunity to pick Kled and they don't take the Kled and they decide I'm going to create space on the k'. Sante. They take. They Opt into k', Sante, which I don't think that BB played bad in that game, but it's like you have the opportunity to just take the Kled and then wait for your pick. Why don't we just do that? I don't think that they picked on. I forget what the picked on three. Exactly. But I don't think it was worth it for their draft to be able to do so. It was just incredibly troll, in my opinion. Just take the KLED. I know that BB's proficient on it, so why the hell are we not doing that? Like, I don't get it. [00:41:46] Speaker B: I think we can just shorthand say the biggest problem we have, the biggest disappointment is actually just drafting. Drafting has been astounding. Well, I can't say build because they're playing a different game, but some of their builds. [00:42:02] Speaker C: There's been several teams that have drafted themselves into a corner really fast. [00:42:06] Speaker B: What? Why are you doing this? This does not work into this. This matchup. You've. You've made it. So you need to win by 25 minutes and you're not going to beat them by 25 minutes. Why are you doing this? [00:42:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:16] Speaker A: Do you have a question? Do you guys think there's. It has happened in draft. Do you think that if they pick Kalista or Renata, like one of them and they on a pick and the other team has an opportunity to take one, do you think it'll ever happen in worlds this year or do you think they'll just do. [00:42:33] Speaker C: We've already seen Renata taken without Kalista getting picked. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Yes, yes. But what I'm saying is, is that they let the other team pick Kalista afterwards. What I'm saying is, do you think they're ever going to a team is going to separate it? Because I think that there is a world where you just have to figure out a champion to play with it, but I don't know if it'd be optimal in that sense because then both bot lanes would be disjointed in the way that they want to play because they're. They have one part of what they want. [00:43:00] Speaker B: So Ronaldo works in significantly more combos than Kalista does. Because Renata is like Kalista's favorite pairing ever. Give her attack speed and a free extra, like four seconds in a fight when she's supposed to be dead. Yeah, she loves it. And the ability for her to watch the enemy just beat themselves up and give Kalista Renata the extra safety from Kalista. That combo for Kalista is so strong. But Renata works so well with other people. And Kalista. [00:43:30] Speaker A: I just wonder if they'll. They'll do it. I'm just curious. [00:43:32] Speaker B: Callisto's the question. [00:43:33] Speaker C: I. I think that I did just check. It doesn't look like Renata has actually been played in Swiss without being paired with Kalista in the same pick. [00:43:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:42] Speaker B: So we've noticed that other people have a. A singular pick, that they're like, I want this more. And then Callisto. Renata is always an immediate combo response. Because it's such a good combo. It has actively won games where I think it shouldn't. Off of Kalista Ultimates. Not Kalista. Renata Ultimates, which was one of the DKT1 games like that, that lost Lane and won because a Renata ultimate saved the fucking day. [00:44:08] Speaker A: Yeah. I just don't know. I don't know if what teams will be willing to do it at Worlds because obviously it's like, super high stakes. But I think it's interesting. Like, I think that there could be an opportunity to throw, like, a wrench in people's plans if you actually did that and against, like, Korean teams. It might be worth it, in my opinion. But I don't know. [00:44:25] Speaker B: I think you can easily grab Renata. I think grabbing Kalista as your first pick to deny the combo is the bigger problem. Or just banning one of them and leaving the other open. [00:44:34] Speaker A: Oh, that. I mean, that's what happens if they don't want it. Yes. [00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:37] Speaker A: But people have picked Renata and said you could take the Callista, you know, But I wonder if a team will ever actually do it. [00:44:45] Speaker B: I think Ballista will work, but it's not. You have to do some weird stuff. I think the team that's going to do it is probably T1 because Karia [00:44:55] Speaker C: is a massive T1. Pulling out the ballista. Or they do it in Swiss or [00:44:59] Speaker B: they're going to grab Kalista and put it on Caria. [00:45:03] Speaker C: True. Okay, I got one more question before we wrap up for you guys, as we are recording this. It is Sunday night. The elimination best of threes have not happened yet. They are anyone's legend versus Team Liquid and Team Secret Whales versus los. Who do we think is getting eliminated the night this episode drops? [00:45:24] Speaker B: Los. Los is happening. I don't think Los is a given. Los. Los is the only thing they have going for them, I think, is Shadow. Am I right? Is Shadows. No, that's. That. That's one of the other teams. Sorry. [00:45:38] Speaker C: They have du. Du, which is apparently how you pronounce D u D u a a hh I don't understand how that's doo doo. But that's what the casters have been saying. [00:45:47] Speaker B: They got corrected. They. They were forced to say to do. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. We all give it as as loss. TL should lose to Al, but I think AL is going to to run the Chinese bracket and lose it here because that's the curse of China. [00:46:05] Speaker A: I think it's just extremely momentum based. I think that if TL loses game one, they will lose. That's my opinion. As TL wins game one, I think there is a chance they 32 them or. Sorry, is it 2 1? [00:46:19] Speaker B: It's the best. 2. Yeah. [00:46:20] Speaker A: 2 1. Yeah, yeah. 2 1. [00:46:22] Speaker C: How funny would it be if Al just gets shut out and just drops out of Worlds without losing a single game? [00:46:28] Speaker A: That would be. That would be crazy. And I would be omega sad. [00:46:32] Speaker B: It would be amazing and very sad for you because of Tarzan. But I think this Jose Teodo is the giant wild card there for tl. Like Yawn has played fantastically. He's been good. And they have Square dj so they've got a standing presence. But Jose Dioto is a mad child and I have no idea how he's gonna work. [00:46:54] Speaker C: Fair enough. All right, guys. [00:46:56] Speaker A: My favorite. One of my favorite. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. One of my favorite things at Worlds was the. The review part where the first game that TL lost, Shadow commented being like, yeah, I just watched his vods and saw what he did every single time. And so I just punished it because he does the exact same thing on Lee Sin every single time. [00:47:15] Speaker B: It was such a brilliant focus. I remember that. That is brilliant. That was absolutely brilliant. [00:47:20] Speaker A: So I find it super interesting because I play comp for like and which is obviously significantly lower, less like play. But when I. When people stream their games, I actively watch their stream to see what they do for their level ones and what they do as a team. And I try to punish their bad habits. So it's funny that even on pro play, they look at people's streams, see what they do and be like, okay, they do this every single time. And they're going to autopilot do this every single time on the world stage. I'm going to punish the shit out of it. So Qiyana invades Lee Sin, takes the red buff because he smited it early. And then Jose Dioto is like freaking out for the rest, like for the [00:47:57] Speaker B: rest of the game. [00:47:58] Speaker A: Next 10 minutes. [00:47:58] Speaker B: Genuinely do you have reminded me of what the actual biggest surprise is of the entirety of worlds, which is what the fuck is going on in jungle. Yeah, the amount of priority on enemy Raptors, enemy everything. I accidentally said it in how we did our thing last time. No, just Raptors is now in a fucking objective. Apparently it is. It starts team fights now. [00:48:21] Speaker A: It is. I just. I discussed this when Jax was talking about going to diamond, by the way. Like, this was a topic I told. That changes whenever you get to a certain point that camp is op. Like that camp is so op. Yep. [00:48:41] Speaker C: All right, guys, you don't get a Lucian top outro this week because you didn't write in any questions. So this is your reminder to write in to the4wordspodcastmail.com with your questions so we can answer them on next week's show. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Should. Should I top lane for bad bad things just be the most standard top lane you need to play. I don't know. [00:49:03] Speaker D: Wait, I had a trinket tip. [00:49:05] Speaker B: Oh, you do? [00:49:06] Speaker C: Okay, about Trundle. [00:49:08] Speaker D: It reminded me this will get you banned. [00:49:10] Speaker B: Oh yes. [00:49:11] Speaker D: Someone asks you. If someone asks you in lobby, what does troll or what does trundle say when you pick him his voice line as like a trivia question and you type out time to troll. You can get like reported in banned. [00:49:29] Speaker B: You can't get reported time of bed. [00:49:32] Speaker D: Don't type that. Don't answer that question. [00:49:35] Speaker C: In general, riot is using a lot of like AI shit to analyze your chats. Do not ever say anything that could be construed by an AI as saying that you are trolling, you are inting, you are feeding. None of the above. I literally got a warning from their system for making the statement. I kind of inted it there. When we won a team fight where I made a mistake and I died and my team saved the day. I literally was like, sorry guys, I kind of inted that one. But good job. I got a warning for that. Just those are now banned words. Do not use those terms. [00:50:14] Speaker B: Yeah, be very careful. Watch what you're typing. They are not doing proper review on that baseline. You have to send something to them. They will take a look at the actual thing with a human later if you do that. But baseline, if you don't put a report back in, that's just stuck there. That's part of your thing. Also take cassante on the top line. [00:50:38] Speaker C: Seriously. Just write some Questions in the 4 wards podcastmail.com we'll see you guys next week. I've been Jack Zoman for Mike, for pillow pet and for witch at Black Mass. Have a Great night. [00:50:49] Speaker D: Good night. [00:50:50] Speaker B: Good night, everybody. [00:50:52] Speaker C: Thanks for listening to the Four Wards Podcast. If you want to support the show directly, consider checking out our [email protected] [00:51:04] Speaker D: and [00:51:04] Speaker C: of course, send your questions to the Fourwards podcast gmail.com so we can answer [00:51:10] Speaker B: them live on the show. [00:51:11] Speaker C: That's the Four Wards podcastmail.com.