Sunday, December 6, 2009

Nidalee Pictures



Saturday, December 5, 2009

Is Tryndamere too Good now?

With the recent changes to Tryndamere, I've been seeing him power house through squishies like its nobodies business. The change to cleanse especially helped him. I've mained boost and ghost before the buff to cleanse and find even more reason to use it now.

A farmed tryndamere with a decked out book of armor pend and crit damage is such a force to be reckoned with. I will guarantee that he will be played rampant in all tiers of elo and will get the nerf stick not too long from now.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Push Strategy Now Viable

The push strategy prior to the tower nerf and creep buff was already annoying and was especially effective in the lower to mid tier range. Now with the recent changes it is even viable in the top tier play. I wonder how mid and lower tier is affected.

Recent Patch - The happenings

Heres a quick update on the recent patch.

1. Executioner's calling was bugged and granted a 12:1 Ap raio. Meaning 100 Ap will deal 1200 in burn damage over 12 seconds. However, it was quickly popularized and hotfixed at 10 PM Pst.

2. Udyr, a seemingly underwhelming champion. Players are still adapting to him to a viable playstyle. However, I don't think we will be seeing one too soon once he goes off of the free to play rotation.

3. Tryndamere - Appears to be a very good champion. I've been seeing him a lot of games lately. It feels like crit items like avarice blades are the way to go.

4. Ryze - his spell flux reworked makes it used more as a chain lightning. With an ancient golem buff you will see him casting it every 6 seconds.

Overall feel of things - I've been seeing a lot more physical carries as of late. Casters are slowly becoming underwhelming once again like prior to the wipes. I'm really digging Gangplank right now (for team orientated play). Especially because he is on free rotation. I stack him with Red Marks of Shielding, Yellow Seals of Evasion, Blue Glyphs of Shielding, and Quintessence of Fortitude. I first Build a Meki Pendant, Tabi, Frozen Heart, then Sunfires or Banshees. It feels like he can run into anything and walk out alive.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Hero Leak: Nidalee - The Beastial Huntress

Nidalee - The Bestial Huntress

As this hero is not released, expect any information here to possibly change.

Prowl (Passive)
Moving through brush increases Nidalee's movement speed by 25% for 2 seconds.
When in Cougar form, she is also stealthed for 2 seconds.

Aspect of the Cougar
Nidalee transforms herself into a cougar, gaining new abilities and increased movement speed in the process.
Levelling up increases Pounce, Swipe, and Takedown damage, as well as Takedown's damage per Dripping Wound stack.

Bushwhack/Pounce
In human form, Nidalee lays a damaging trap for unwary opponents that, when sprung, reveals the target and reduces their armor and magic resistance for 7 seconds. Traps disappear after 6 minutes. Also applies the "Dripping Wound" debuff.
As a cougar, she pounces forward, dealing a small amount of damage in a small radius when she lands. Also applies the "Dripping Wound" debuff.
Levelling up increases the Trap's armor/magic resistance debuff and (increases/decreases?) Trap mana cost.

Javelin Toss/Takedown
In human form, Nidalee throws a spiked javelin at her target that increases in damage the longer it's in the air, to a maximum of 300%. Also applies the "Dripping Wound" debuff.
As a cougar, she grabs her opponent by the throat and attempts to bring them down, dealing additional damage depending on the number of Dripping Wound stacks. Also applies the "Dripping Wound" debuff.
Levelling up increases Javelin damage and (increases/decreases?) Javelin mana cost.

Primal Surge/Swipe
In human form, Nidalee heals her target and grants them an attack speed bonus for 8 seconds.
As a cougar, Nidalee claws nearby enemies, dealing base damage plus extra. Also applies the "Dripping Wound" debuff.
Levelling up increases Primal Surge's heal amount and Primal Surge's attack speed buff.

Advice

Use brush to your advantage! Moving in and out of brush can heavily alter your effectiveness in battle.
In team fights, start by harassing with your javelin toss, and then switch to cougar form to chase down anyone who flees.
I have no idea what Dripping Wound does. Probably a damage over time debuff.

Hero Leak: Poppy - The Iron Ambassador

Poppy - The Iron Ambassador

As this hero is not released, expect any information here to possibly change.
Battle Hardened (Passive)
Each time Poppy hits a target, she gains 1 damage and armor for 8 seconds. This effect stacks.

Iron Form
Poppy transforms into the living essence of iron for 10 seconds. While in this form, Poppy shrugs off damage per hit up to a maximum. If, after 10 seconds, Poppy can still absorb additional damage, the cooldown on Iron Form is reduced to 10 seconds.
Levelling up increases damage reduction and damage reduction limit, and reduces cooldown.

Obtrustion
Poppy commands her summoner to bring her to a target ally. Once there, Poppy redirects damage from her ally to herself at a reduced proportion for 5 seconds, while protecting her ally from harm.
Levelling up reduces the amount of damage taken.

Rampage
Poppy forgoes her discipline and goes into a rampage, dealing magic damage per second to nearby enemy units. Drains mana every second.
Levelling up increases the amount of damage per second, and (increases/decreases?) mana drained per second.

Smash
Poppy leaps forward and slams her weapon into the ground. The resulting shockwave deals magic damage and slows enemy units in the area.
Levelling up increases the damage and the slow inflicted to enemies, and (increases/decreases?) mana cost.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

How to Zone Control



This is a video made by Shurelia, a Member of Clan AoN. A great player and one of the best Soraka in the game.

Last Hitting

Last Hitting:

Is one of the most important aspect of them game and even more so after the next patch that increases gold gain. The purpose of Last hitting is to maximize your gold gain and minimize your exposure to taking damage. The first point is self evident, you only get gold for last hitting the creeps. The second point: which is not as obvious. Depending on how you want your lane to flow, pushed out or freeze in. Push out last hitting consists of hitting multiple creeps and setting up their hp. Underneath this concept there are 2 branches. HP differentiating and hp balancing.

Last Hit Pushing
[b]For Hp Differentiating[/b] you want to hit multiple creeps so that their is a big enough difference so that the passive damage from the creeps will not kill 2 creeps at the same time allowing you to last hit one then get the next (Sometimes 2 creeps are at 5% health at the same time, you want them both but you only have a single target spell and you have to make a choice of only getting 1).

Next is HP Balancing If you have an AoE Spell you can hit multiple targets with your auto attack to balance all their HP under your AoE Spell damage threshold. Once they are, you can cast your spell and kill all the creeps in 1 blow.

Last Hit Freezing You want to do this if you are 1, playing defensive or 2 preparing for a gank. The purpose of last hitting in lane freezing is to only do the minimum damage to the oncoming creeps so the flow of the wave is always in front of your tower. This will 1. provide you protection and 2. allow you to gank them because it is harder for them to get back to tower. When you are doing this, one of the thing that you can do is stay back out of attack range and run for for exp and last hitting.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Need Ideas for Future Posts

Most of my ideas comes on a whim and I know its relevant to some more than others. This post is ask you guys on what you would like to see more of. Like how to videos, guides, or fun stuff on LoL.

I was thinking of making a tower diving highlight compilation video. Using "Holy Diver" as the background music. Whats your take?

Monday, November 23, 2009

Analysis on Premade & Solo Queue

This post is in regards to my quick analysis on Pre-mades and Solo Queues. In this post I want to address the advantages and disadvantages of both and how the Elo system works with and against you. Please excuse my poor grammar and unorganized thought (I wrote this on a whim).

Pre-made:
The advantages of being in a pre-made is that you get to play with the people that you want to and enjoying playing with. In the beginning when you first build a pre-made, with the current Elo system, it puts you at a disadvantage. It puts you at a disadvantage because the system assumes that because you are queuing in a group you are coordinated, have good communications, and are employing a real strategy. Because of those assumption the systems raises the average Elo of every player (it feels about 150-250).

What does this mean to you? It means that if you are making a pre-made with players you do not regularly play with, the system will have an incorrect assumption about your overall team's skill level and match you against often better solo queue players which you have no advantage over. The consequences are: you lose more frequently and gain less Elo for winning.

Light at the end of the Tunnel for Pre-mades:
If you regularly play with a group of friends or have a set 5 man team, in the long run you will acquire the team skills to fulfill those assumptions. Some strategies and line-up cannot and usually will not be employed by solo queuers which you will be able to execute with enough practice. You will start off losing more frequently than winning but after several games, your team's average Elo will have adjusted for a 50:50 W/L ratio. However, because you are in a team, the overall learning and teamwork curve of your team will be higher than those of the solo queuers you matched with then you will start winning more frequently than losing. On an end note: Premades sucks at the beginning but, they are the best at the top therefore a majority of the players will have a negative impression of pre-mades if you do not queue together frequently and consistently.

Solo Queue:
Quite the opposite of the 5 man pre-made. The system actually works quite well in your favor in terms of Elo points rating system. You will feel this especially of you started out in random pre-mades with players you do not play with frequently. Playing in premades with relative sub-standard teamwork and coordination will tank your Elo. So when you start playing in solo queues, you will be continually be match with better players and against worst players (with the assumption that you are being matched against the unorganized pre-mades).

Advantages: You get better players more frequently on your team and your Elo climbs higher and faster.

Disadvantages: Overall, solo queuing all the time hinders your team play potential. Also, once you cap out on where you should be, you will think that pre-mades are the way to go. So once you start forming a pre-made after solo queueing the system will try and reassess your team's skill level and once again will have an inaccurate assessment and place your pre-made against better solo queuers or a correctly assessed team (happens specifically at the top). So if this situation arises you will lose more often than your win.

End Note: With the current system: it is too difficult to assess how to place solo queuers versus pre-mades because players switch between the two, too often. So I am not sure if I should applaud riot or not for taking a "road less traveled" by placing solo queuers and pre-mades in the same pool (take warcraft 3 ladder systems for example).

Saturday, November 21, 2009

How to Jungle Warwick



Full Guide coming soon! Posted here and archived on solomid.net

Friday, November 20, 2009

Nunu the Yeti Rider - Ap Guide by Dan Dinh

Nunu - The Yeti Rider

Runes:
X9 Marks of Magic Resist per lvl
X9 Seal of Evasion
X9 Glyphs of Magic Resistance
X3 Quint of Fortitude

Summoner Spells:
Exhaust
Smite

Masteries -

Offensive:

3/3 Archmage Savvy
1/3 Deadliness
4/4 Sorcery
1/1 Archaic Knowledge

Utility:
Spatial Accuracy x 1
Perserverance x 3
Expanded Mind x 4
Meditation x 3
Utility Mastery x 2
Quickness x 3
Intelligence x 3
Presence of the Master x 1

Spell Builds

Level 1: Snowball (if team fighting,comsume otherwise)
Level 2: Consume (if you got snowball first, otherwise grab snowball)
Level 3: Snowball
Level 4: Blood Boil (if you are having trouble laning grab consume for extra heals)
Level 5: Snowball
Level 6: Absolute Zero
Level 7: Snowball
Level 8: Blood boil
Level 9: Snowball
Level 10: Blood boil
Level 11: Absolute Zero
Level 12: Blood Boil
Level 13: Blood Boil
Level 14: Consume
Level 15: Consume
Level 16: Absolute Zero
Level 17: Consume
Level 18: Consume

Items to start:
Dorans Ring
Health potions x 1

Build:
1. X2 Dorans Ring ASAP.
2. Boots Lvl 1
3. Health Crystal + Mana Crystal = Catalyst the Protector
4. Combine Boots Lvl 1 to Ninja Tabi if they have 3 Physical Carries or More otherwise Combine to make Mercury Threads.
5. Finish Banshee Veil
6. Get Aegis of Legion of your Team does not have 1 or go for Void Staff
7. Get another Void Staff

Spells

Consume (Q): This spell does 500 damage to a creep at level 1 and heals your for 100 Hit points. Try to consume only when you're hit point is not topped off. It is more efficient to last hit creeps and save your mana for snowballs so you can keep up the harassment. When you go back to base to heal or get items make sure to run across a creep camp to grab a creep or two before blue pilling. Then as you run back to the lane, finish them off if you haven't already.

Blood Boil (W): This skill is very good for getting away and initiating on heros. This spell will most definitely save you and your teammates lives over and over. Also you want to keep this spell casted on your physical carry, because it will make a noticeable difference in their damage output.

Snowball (E): I call this spell the snowball of doom. You want to throw this in the face of the enemies champions constantly to keep them low so they play defensive in a lane. A very important thing to remember is to be selective when you choose who to throw it at. You want to throw it at champions without hit point regeneration and you want to focus 1 hero so that champion would stay passive and not double up and gank you.

Absolute Zero: More like absolute destruction. This spell is very good but getting it off is very tricky. This spell is the primary reason for getting a lot of survivability. It will be hard to get this spell off because as soon as the enemies sees you casting it in a team fight they will stun you. So my suggestion in a team fight is to run in snowball them hit a few times and wait for the malphite/sion/taric etc to cast it first (usually 3 seconds into a teamfight then cast your ult. This spell will be a lot easier to pull off once you get your banshee's veil. Also, something very important to note is that Nunu can detonate his ult at anytime while he is channeling his spell by simply moving. In doing so it will deal the percentage of damage it is suppose to relative to the channeling time. Say for example: the full channeling time is 3 seconds and is suppose to deal 900 damage. If he cancels at 1 second he will deal 300 damage and 600 damage at 2 seconds respectively.

How to play Nunu

Laning: You want to harass the other champion as much as possible with your snowball. The reason I got x2 Doran's Ring because It gives a lot of Health, a lot of mana regeneration (for snowball/consume) and AP to make your consume heal more. The best time to throw a snow ball at a champion is when you notice that one of your creep is about 1/5 hit points because you can safely assume that the other champion will run up to last hit it. Now they can expect to run up to eat a snow ball. Doing this will deter them from last hitting and will keep the low on hp which makes them easier to gank. If you are laning with a partner. and you are top lane as purple team, when ever your smite and consume is up both at the same time, run to the neutral camp to smite and consume them. This will give your lane a level advantage over the other team.

Ganking: Nunu's snowball and bloodboil makes not a very good ganker. He will allow fast initiate and continual slows on the person you are chasing down. Couple those two spells together, your opponent is as good as dead if they are running away alone.

Runes books I've used.

Physical Carry:

x9 Desolation Mark or x9 Furor marks
x9 Furor Seals
x9 Furor Glyphs
x3 Furor Quints or x3 Desolation Quints

Defensive Tank

x9 Mark of Warding
x9 Seal of Evasion or Seal of Warding
x9 Mark of Warding
x3 Quint of Evasion or Seal of Warding or Quint of Fortitude

Casters

x9 Greater Marks of Resilience
x9 Greater Seals of Evasion
x9 Greater Glyphs of Insight
x3 Quintessence of Fortitude

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Tip of the day - Fully Utilizing Map Awareness

In order to control any game you need to maximize your map awareness. This can be done either by buying wards, dropping Teemo's mushroom in key locations. Alternatives to this would be using clairvoyance.

But a couple of things the better players use but most people don't, is to anticipate character movement direction and game sounds. What I mean by this is; say you see 1 person from mid heading south and 2 players from bottom backing into the woods. Automatically I would assume a gank or a dragon run.

The second thing I mentioned is sounds. With the way the map is set up, you can still hear each players casting spells or hear collision sounds even if you do not have sight of them. For example: They have a mundo on the other team and hes off the map for quite some time now. Scroll around the map to: Nashor, Dragon, and other creep camps. You will be able to hear his infected cleaver if you vision is in that area even if he is in fog.

The same applies with Anivia, Corki, and several other heros.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Runes to get for Tomorrow

The best runes:
Marks of Desolations (Red Runes) For Carries ie: Ashe, Teemo, Yi, Jax, Tryn etc.
Seal of Evasion: if you spec nimbleness
Quintessence of Desolation for Carries
Quintessence of Furor for Carries
Quintessence of Fortitude
Any Magic Resist runes for Tanks

Decent runes:
Any HP runes for Tanks
Any secondary Furor runes for Carries
Any secondary Desolation Runes for Carries

I listed those runes because they are the most flexible in terms of rune book composition and quality. The other runes that adds crit and attack speed are very specialized and would not provide you as much utility.

What do you think about my recommendations.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Knock up / Pull Back Bug



A bug my friend Randuin told me about today.

I need help populating our guide/strategies section

I'm trying to create a more comprehensive League of Legends gaming database at solomid.net. Right now a complete make over is in the works. I have 2 professional web developer and 1 designer working on looks, feels, and databases. However, I need help from you to create content. I would like if any of you have a question on how to play a certain character or do a certain strategies to ask about it on my forums. The forums is populated by most of the top 10 and even more top 500 rated players in the us aswell as some of the top EU.

Come with questions and hopefully we have answers! Thanks!

http://www.solomid.net/forums or the forums tab on this blog.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Void Staff

Is by far the best caster item in the game. The way the item is right now, a caster like annie with offensive spec can burst 2000 of pure damage on a carry instantly. Did I mention that she has 2 AOE spells as part of that 2000 damage?

Right now, void staff is incredibly broken. The 40% magic pen is additive. Having 2 void staff and the 10pt magic pen mastery will give you 95% magic penetration. There is absolutely nothing that can block you except a banshee veil. Even if you have 1000magic resist, that build will pierce through 950 of it.

If you are having trouble with MR stackers, try out the void staff.... It's OP until they fix the "Unique" ability (which apparently is not).

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Cool Bug - We Broke the Game



Just a bug that we found how to replicate. It happened to me the first time in a game and I was wondering how my lane was always pushed to tower. The way it happened to us did not involve a heimer. As a matter of fact I don't know how it happened except that our creeps were blocked and it almost killed a katarina with 3000 health and shunpo (massive dodge) in 1 second.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Exp Required to level up pre/post patch

This is a post from Skystriker

"Previously, it required a grand total of 32651 experience to get to level 30 from level 1.Now, it requires 40083.This is an increase of 22% in the grand total of experience you need to reach level 30.For those who want specifics, here you go.

Previously:
1- 0
2- 90
3- 98
4- 105
5- 113
6- 448
7- 476
8- 504
9- 532
10- 560
11- 840
12- 880
13- 920
14- 960
15- 1000
16- 1040
17- 1080
18- 1120
19- 1160
20- 1200
21- 1705
22- 1760
23- 1815
24- 1870
25- 1925
26- 1980
27- 2035
28- 2090
29- 2145
30- 2200

Now, it is:
1- 0
2- 90
3- 98
4- 105
5- 113
6- 448
7- 476
8- 504
9- 532
10- 560
11- 1050
12- 1100
13- 1150
14- 1200
15- 1250
16- 1300
17- 1350
18- 1400
19- 1450
20- 1500
21- 2131
22- 2200
23- 2269
24- 2338
25- 2406
26- 2475
27- 2544
28- 2613
29- 2681
30- 2750"

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Patch Notes 11/11/2009

PVP.Net 30.10

PVP.net Help System: If you see a “?” button anywhere in the PVP.net client, click on it to bring up the help system. This system is designed to give you some basic information about various aspects of the PVP.net client.
The PVP.net client has been significantly optimized for performance. Users will have a slightly longer loading and login time, while transitions and loading in the rest of the client are up to 5x faster in some areas.
Summoner Runebooks have been significantly optimized and should perform much better.
Fixed an issue with Maestro that would cause users to see errors at various points.
Fixed a typo on the Masteries page in the Summoner Profile.
Changed the primary font in the PVP.net client to Fritz Quadrata.
Fixed various Localization Issues

League of Legends 1.0.0.52 (displays as 1.0.0.1)

Amumu

Tantrum Damage modified from 115/130/145/160/175 to 100/120/140/160/180
Curse of the Sad Mummy Duration reduced from 3 to 2.5

Blitzcrank

Static Field Damage increased from 200/300/400 to 250/375/500

Cho'Gath

Feral Scream Cooldown reduced from 17 to 16
Feral Scream Range increased from 615 to 650
Rupture Range increased from 900 to 1000

Dr Mundo

Burning Agony AoE range increased from 300 to 325
Burning Agony Movement Impairment Reduction increased from 20/25/30/35/40% to 25/30/35/40/45%
Masochism cooldown reduced from 8 to 7
Stats: Increased Attack Speed per Level from 2 to 2.3

Janna

Eye of the Storm Mana Cost reduced from 70/90/110/130/150 to 70/85/100/115/130
Adjusted the selection radius to match her size

Karthus

Lay Waste Ability Power Ration is now correct
Fixed a bug with Wall of Pain where it was slowing units 2 second after the particle had faded

Katarina

Shunpo Ability Power Ratio reduced from .8 to .75
Shunpo Cooldown reduced from 9/8/7/6/5 to 10/9/8/7/6
Death Lotus Ability Power Ratio reduced from .4 to .35

Malphite

Seismic Shard now steals the amount of Movement Speed that the target has lost instead of increasing Malphite’s Movement Speed by the equivalent percentage lost
Unstoppable Force Stun Duration reduced from 1.5/2/2.5 to 1.5/1.75/2
Unstoppable Force Cooldown increased from 120/100/80 to 140/120/100

Morgana

Black Shield Cooldown increased from 15 to 17
Black Shield will now no longer dispell debuffs when cast. It will still block incoming debuffs.

Nasus

Spirit Fire Cooldown increased from 11 to 12
Spirit Fire Mana Cost increased from 60/75/90/105/120 to 70/85/100/115/130

Nunu

Blood Boil Attack Speed increased from 20/30/40/50/60% to 25/35/45/55/65%
Absolute Zero Damage increased from 400/600/800 to 500/700/900
Absolute Zero Attack Speed Slow per second increased from 15% to 25%
Absolute Zero Range increased from 525 to 575

Rammus

Increased base Health from 400 to 420 and Health per level from 76 to 86
Tremors damage increased from 55/110/165 to 65/130/195

Shaco

Deceive Cooldown increased from 9 to 10
Deceive Mana Cost increased from 80/70/60/50/40 to 90/80/70/60/50
Deceive Duration reduced from 5 to 4
Deceive Range reduced from 575 to 500
Two-Shiv Poison Mana Cost increased from 75 to 80
Jack in the Box Fear Range reduced from 450 to 400
Jack in the Box Base Health reduced from 200 to 150
Jack in the Boxes are no longer magic immune, but instead have 50 Magic Resist

Sivir

On the Hunt Attack Speed increase for allies should now be properly reduced in half for allies

Teemo

New Passive: Lie in Wait: Teemo will no stealth after standing still for 6 seconds without taking an action (damage will break this effect). Moving or taking actions will break Teemo out of stealth.

Tristana

Increased auto attack missile speed from 1450 to 2250
Rapid Fire Mana Cost decreased from 100 to 80
Rocket Jump Mana Cost decreased from 100 to 80
Exploding Shot passive explosion damage increased from 30/50/70/90/110 to 50/75/100/125/150
Exploding Shot active component now will tick damage every second as opposed to every half second
Buster Shot Mana Cost from decreased from 150 to 140
Buster Shot pushback radius increased from 150 to 175

Twisted Fate

PAX Skin will now properly display in game
Gate now has the proper team color indicators
Gate will no longer create a vision bubble at the target location

Veigar

Primordial Burst Base Damage increased from 100/250/400 to 200/300/400
Dark Matter Cooldown reduced from 13 to 12
Dark Matter Mana Cost modified from 90/105/120/135/150 to 100/110/120/130/140


Summoner Spells

Clairvoyance Cooldown reduced from 60 to 55
Heal: A debuff is now placed on Champions healed by Summoner Heal for 25 seconds. Subsequent Summoner Heals will have their effect dimished by 50% on allies with the debuff. Your Champion will still receive the full amount of the heal if cast by your Summoner.
Ignite: Fixed an issue that prevented ignite from being cast while silenced

Items

Guardian Angel Health / Mana Restored on Respawn reduced from 50% to 40%
You can no longer teleport while being revived by Guardian Angel
Oracles Crystal Cost Reduced from 450 to 400
Malady Attack Speed increased from 40% to 50%
NEW ITEM: Void Staff: Mid Tier Ability Power/Mana Item: Gives your spells 40% Magic Resist Penetration
UPDATED ITEM: Sorcerer’s Shoes: Changed to flat 15 Magic Resist Penetration.

General
Fixed a bug causing some spells or characters to not preload properly.
Tutorial text altered to reference proper default key bindings.
Melee minion gold per kill increased from 18 to 20 on three lane maps and from 22 to 24 on two lane maps.
Increased base gold per kill from 250 to 300
Decreased max kill streak multiplier from 4 to 3.333 (effectively 1000 to 999.9 gold)
Decreased gold pool for assists from 70% of base to 58.3% of base (no effective change)
Decreased kill stream bonus multiplier per kill from .2 to .166 (no effective change)
Decreased minimum death stream penalty from .35 to .3 (no effective change)
Mender's Faith now provides 10 x level bonus HP on Summoner Heal from 75 flat bonus HP and 10 seconds of cooldown reduction.
Fixed some brush visibility issues where you can see one user from another patch of grass or from certain angles
Fixed a bug for chain missiles disappearing when a unit dies / goes out of range
Fixed a large amount of server and game crashes (About 15 different types of crashes)
Improved minion turning when they appear from fog of war
Fixed a bug with bots always spawning in middle of platform
Fixed the illusion of “loss of health” when moving the camera around distant units
Fixed a bug related to disappearing and reappearing particles
Fixed a bug where a player under rare circumstances could reconnect as another player and have full vision of the map

Turrets

Turret damage scaling changed to 85% to 155% at 10% increments on hit resetting to 125% when switching champions from 75% to 200% at 25% increments on hit resetting to 150% when switching champions.
Turret backdoor bonus decreased from 250 to 200.
Turret armor and magic resistance growth decreased from 2.5 to 1.5.
Turret armor and magic resistance decay decreased from 5 to 3.
Second turret base armor decreased from 42.5 to 37.5
Inhibitor turret base armor decreased from 55 to 47.5

Baron Nashor

Reduced Mana Regen from 25 Mana per 5 to 17.5 Mana per 5
Reduced Health Regen from 5% per 5 to 3.5% per 5

Twisted Treeline

Reduced Inhibitor Health from 3600 to 3000
Reduced Crest of Flowing Water's Movement Speed Buff from 50% to 45%
Increased Respawn Time from 18-35 to 20-37
Adjusted Crest of Crushing Wrath (The dragon buff) to increase damage by 1% per level.
Adjusted Crest of Nature's Fury (The wolf buff) to increase attack speed by 20% and reduce cooldowns by 10%.
Decreased the range of the vision sentry in the middle, such that you cannot see into the lanes above and below the jungle.
The nexus should now have only one turret instead of two.
Increased the health of Super Minions by 200 and their damage by 20.
Cooldown reduction should now be properly capped at 40% on Twisted Treeline.
Fixed minion pathfinding

Insights on Current/Future Strategies

Currently, the game is heavily revolved around healing. Ever since the level reset and rune wipes. The game has changed drastically. Prior to this, heal was never too big of a deal because almost no hero can out heal burst physical damage. A Yi with with an armor pen/crit damage book can bust a hole through a Soraka is seconds disallowing her to take full benefit of healing over time. However, as things are in its current state, healing is the new "in" and it is hard to play with out.

You may correctly me if I am wrong, but I have experienced this game prior to the reset and generally have a good understanding of how this game is played recently and will be played in the future. I believe that slowly, you will see a transition away from heal stacking because the effectiveness of heal will slowly diminish as people acquire more masteries and the opportunity cost of it will increase as more champions become feasible once again.

I will further support this by explaining that most teams that runs multiple healers generally do not get ap. The ap scaling for heals is so low that it makes it not worth it. So as champions increasingly hit harder and harder passively (through runes/masteries). The healing will not beable to keep them up. Below is a chart showing what I just said. Say a champion with 2000 hitpoints. The base healing is 30/secs and is subjected to 100 damage/s with increments of 10 damage. The bottom row shows how long the champion will last.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

lvl 8 Dr Mundo vs Baron Nashor


This is a video of mundo solo'ing Baron Nashor at Lvl 8. There are obviously easier ways and better summoner's spells if you use your team to jump him when hes at 1400 hit points. Also yes, I know this is an obvious exploit. I just want to throw this out there. This has been a known exploit since Mundo came out.


If you want to try it out, you don't really have to get all Doran's Shield. As long as you have enough hit point and health regen you won't die from throwing cleavers. You want the Ancient Golem buff before you start to expedite the process. You don't need smite unless you plan on solo'ing him. It would also be easier to do it at level 9. I did it at level 8 because thats was the level I got to when Nashor spawned.

Experimental Jax Build

I've been trying to experiment with heros lately and revisited a build I once used when I played Jax a while ago. I thought it was pretty effective so I gave it another try.
The build is as follow:
Summoners Spells: Either Exhaust/Heal or Exhaust/Rally

Items: Doran's Shield + 1 Health pot as starting Item.
Ninja Tabi
Emblem of Valor to Starks Fervor
Sheen, Phage, Zeal to Trinity Force
Banshee's Viel
Guardian Angel

The Game hasn't lasted long enough for a 6th Item but when Death Fire Grasp comes back I'm gonna stick that between Trinity Force most likely.

Theres a lot of thing I haven't tested concisely yet. Like how beneficial empowering strike/leap/counter strike procs with trinity force and whether the sheen proc is made AOE from the empowering strike.

If anyone comes across this and tries it out. Post what you feel about it. By no means is this a guide. It is just an experimental build I've had a few successful games with.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Reviving the Early Baron Strat

Yesterday, I had a chance to play against a team that ran a very similar strat that I did 2 months ago. They ran a Warwick, Sivir, Taric, Soraka, and Malphite. Similar to ours, we ran a Warwick, Sivir, Taric, Ashe, & Nunu.

The strategy was to go team items: Starks and Aegis ASAP to do baron then push the base. It generally resulted in a fast 15 minutes win. My god, now I kind of know how it felt to be on the other end. At the time we used it, we had won 40 games in a row until the next patch came out at the time which introduced Blitzcrank. The OP Crank AOE silence had shut us down so we abandoned that strategy and opted for a different 1. In retrospec, now that they significantly nerfed Blitzcrank's ult (AOE Silence) that strategy has become viable once again.

For those that are interested. The strategy for Clan OP is as follow:

Team Comp: Warwick, Sivir, Taric, Soraka, and Malphite.

Summoner's spells: 5 Smite, 2 Heals, 2 Rally, 1 Promote.

Have 5 man kill Elder Lizard together (warwick gets the buff), then 5 Man Dragon. Warick and Malphite can roam in an out of jungle to control buffs around the map. Then gather as 4-5 to smite down dragon everytime it spawns.

Soraka: goes fast Aegis/Mecury Threads(mr boots)/Innervating Locket
Taric: Mercs/Banshees/Guardian Angel
Malphite/Sivir/Warick: Fast Madreds/Merc Boots

At lvl 6-8 when baron spawns: group up and kill it then push.

Important aspects of this strat: it is crucial to control the dragon for exp gold and the buffs around the map.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

What I like about Soraka

You guys probably know by now that I really like playing soraka. This post is to just list some of the things that I like about soraka. You may or may not know it already but I'm going to post what I feel about her anyways.

1. Her heal level 1 allows you to harass constantly keep enemy champions behind exp line. It always allows you to tank hits for a few moments so creeps do not make it to the tower to freeze the last just out of tower range.

2. She has one of the longest normal attack range in the game. This allows you to harass heros infront of towers and behind creeps.

3. She can detect invisible units with her starcall ability. Whenever a stealthed unit is within starcall range the spell will light up telling you that you are about to get ganked. It also lets you chase down invisible units and kill them while they are stealthed.

4. Her magic resist aura is very beneficial throughout the game.

5. Her magic resist debuff from starcall, will greatly benefit any magic damage based team. By making all spells take more on debuffed champions sometimes by up to 3 times more when stacked enough times.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Sivir- The Battle Mistress by Reginald

Sivir- The Battle Mistress

I will be writing this guide without runes because currently no one has any.

Summoner Spells:
Heal
Teleport

Masteries:
Defensive:
Mender's Faith x 1
Hardiness x3
Evasion x 4
Nimbleness x 1

Utility:
Spatial Accuracy x 1
Perserverance x 3
Expanded Mind x 4
Meditation x 3
Utility Mastery x 2
Quickness x 3
Intelligence x 3
Presence of the Master x 1

Level 1: Spiral Blade
Level 2: Spell Shield
Level 3: Spiral Blade
Level 4: Ricochet
Level 5: Spiral Blade
Level 6: On the Hunt
Level 7: Spiral Blade
Level 8: Ricochet
Level 9: Spiral Blade
Level 10: Spell Shield
Level 11: On the Hunt
Level 12: Spell Shield
Level 13: Spell Shield
Level 14: Ricochet
Level 15: Spell Shield
Level 16: On the Hunt
Level 17: Ricochet
Level 18: Ricochet

Items to start :
Meki pendant
Health potions x 2

Build:
Philosopher stone ( if under 6 minutes), if not then Chalice of Harmony.

If you're able to farm very well and able to get Philosopher stone and Chalice of Harmony under 10 minutes then buy it. ( these items are the ultimate pushing items on sivir)

Next, Beserker's Greaves, Stark's Fervor, Catalyst Protector, BF Sword( then make Infinity's Edge) , Next Catalyst ( to Banshee's Veil), Guardian's Angel, then Black Cleaver)

(SELL Philospher stone by 25 minutes)

End game items: Beserker's Greaves, Stark's Fervor, Banshee's Veil, Infinity's Edge, Guardian's Angel, Black Cleaver)

Basically getting Banshee's Veil on Sivir will make her unkillable in team fights.

Laning: Always solo middle. Sivir is the type hero that is only great for soloing because the fast levels that she gets help her pushing ability significantly. The object for sivir is to push down the turret in her lane. Always look for hits on the tower when it is available. Don't stop attacking the tower until the last creep is being focused by the tower. After destroying the first tier tower in your middle lane, switch up the lanes and push other ones.


Spiral Blade (Q): This skill is mainly used for harassing and farming. When casting the skill always target the ranged creeps on the back. Additionally, it would be very good if the spiral blade damaged the enemy champion too. The goal is to hit the ranged creeps and the enemy champion as well. Look for a good time and throw your spiral blade. Other times when throwing your spiral blade, you might want position you hero so when the boomerang comes back, you will hit them with the second hit. Doing this takes time and effort. When you have learned the correct positioning and areas to throw the Spiral blade, it is even easy to hit good players twice .

Ricochet (W): This skill is mainly used to push and is very good for farming. Usually the player wants to use Ricochet when Sivir is targeting the tower. While Sivir attacks the tower, the glaives bounce and hits the creeps. Ricochet is really good for team fights as well, make sure it is always on during battles. The bounces can decide a team fight easily.

Spell Shield: This is Sivir's built in survivability. Its her " Banshee's Veil". With masteries are shield is around 10 seconds. This spell is very good because it can block ANY spell. This spell is very simple, however it takes skill and timing to use correctly. In team fights, you're going to be targeted by multiple spells and your job is to block the spell that does the most damage or is most detrimental to yourself. Some good things to block are ; Ashe's Arrow ( Crystal Arrow), Morgana's bind (Dark binding), cardmasters gold card. Using the spell shield to block stuns and disables is much better than blocking pure damage. Blocking disables prevents them from damaging you while you're stunned. If the disabled are negated, then you're able to change your postion ( where it is safer to deal damage from).

On the Hunt: Her ultimate is very good for pushing and a great team fighting spell.

Situations:

Team fights
Early Pushing
Late Game Pushing
Baron
Dragon
Chasing/ Ganking
Retreating

When solo pushing, its best to save On the Hunt to escape rather than dealing damage to the tower. What happens is usually, sivir breaks off from the group and pushes a tower. The 5 enemy champions gather up to gank her, as they come to gank her, Sivir can use On the Hunt to escape. As they chase Sivir, the 4 teammates on your team can push another side lane. This is a great strategy that i have done many times. Teams usually do not send less than 2 heroes to kill Sivir because she is such a hard champion to kill.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Mundo Playstyle Video - Dan Dinh


So in the last 3-4 days, I've been solo queuing Mundo to 1-up Tree Eskimo. I think of all the Mundo games, I went like 15-4. Not too shabby. Here is a video of my refined mundo play. To my suprise, Mundo is pretty beasty and is pretty fun in random plays.

Team Composition - Supports

First off, I'd like to say sorry for not posting in such a long time. It's been really hard because I'm trying to work on my website at solomid.net and its been a head ache because I'm such a noob at this webmaster stuff and it has been hell trying to find a new forum host that can handle the traffic it is generating and moving the databases over. Enough of the rant, lets get down to business.



To me, support is the most fun to play. As the support your job is to harass, crowd control, and heal. Sure you don't go on god like streaks and do big crits but all the intricacies, to me, make it worth while. Well what makes a good support?

1. The ability to baby. This means that in a lane you are able to harass the other team and support yours while your lane mate happy farms it up. A good example of a champion that can baby and harass is Soraka. She has one of the longest range to auto attack harass and she can continually heal herself and her ally so they can more safely farm. A second example would be Janna. She can use her shield to increase damage output and shield against incoming damage. She can aslo use her zephyr then gale to gank and harass. If she wants to retreat she can gale (tornado) to escape.

2. Protect the tanks and carries in team battle. Piggybacking again off of what I just mentioned above. Janna's/Morgana's shield can protect the key champions in team battles and keep they up while they lay massive damage out put. Janna's gale/ult can CC oponents aswell as Morgana's Ult. Other forms of protection would be Soraka/Taric/Mino Heals.

3. Ability to crowd control. Basically means any type of disable. Minotaur stun, Fiddle silence, etc.

With all these in mind, there are only a hand full of good champions that fit these criteria out there that I dare classify as support. They would be: Minotaur, Soraka, Taric, Morgana, Janna.

Next Time I will post so specifics on Laning, Playstyle, Harassing, and Babysitting.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Annotations to Soraka Video

I added annotations to my soraka video. It includes somethings to keep in mind when you want to lane soraka.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax2PeFLMM00

Friday, October 30, 2009

Team Composition - Tanks: Initiating and Pulling Aggro

As a tank, you want to take as many hits as possible and live as long as possible. Your job is to be at the front line, the first to go in, and the first to die. I know this may or may not be intuitive, but yes, you want to be the one focused and the first to die. Remember, everything explained here assumes that you are roaming as a group and that your team are following and are preparing for a decisive battle.



As a tank you will be leading the team through the forest. You will be about 1-2 seconds a head of your team while they follow closely behind. In regards to maintaining aggro and tanking hits. Sometimes I think of it as a team effort. Your team has to position themselves behind you so that it is worth while to for them to attack you while your team hits from behind instead of walking past you while you are attacking them. Focusing their main dps will generally cause their team to focus on you. Also you will lead differently depending on which hero you play. For example.



Allistar: you will walk the front lines and the moment you see the other team (assuming you are roaming as 5) you will flash in (if you have it) then pulverive them and push the squishiest hero towards your team. After doing so you will be the only hero in attacking range of 4 of them so they will intuitively focus you. If you do not have flash, you can always just ghost walk and headbutt their tanks back while you and your team go forwards to initiate. Remember after you headbutt you have to choose when you should pulverize. Don't do it automatically. You want to stun as many as possible. So I would usually walk forwards a little into the center of their team before pulverizing.



Amumu: again, your job is to lead. The best way to initiate is to have your team move forwards slightly before and a head of you. You then you flash in and use your ultimate to maximize the 3 seconds of pounding you just set the other team up for. Again, be selective of when you should use your ultimate. Do not use it until your teammates are in range of attacking. Sometimes, I flash in too early or I am tanking their hits. I would tantrum and dispair for a second or two to wait for my team to catch up before I use my ultimate. Remember, Amumu's ultimate does not do that much damage. Its purpose is to disable the other team while yours can pound them. So make a conscious decision when you should ult to maximize that damage. When you do ult them, remember to auto attack and tantrum their carry dps and bandage that champion as your ultimate runs out.



Gangplank: It is kind of unconventional to build gangplank as a tank but it works pretty well. If you are using him as a tank. I wouldn't mind having him be the initiator aswell. You want to run far enough infront of your team so that they focus you usually 2 seconds. You want to keep charging forwards towards their range heros so their melee can follow until they ultimately are all grouped up on top of you then you can use your ultimate.



Malphite: Is sort of like Amumu because of the AOE stun but is different because he is basically flashing and stunning at the same time with his ultimate. The best way to use his ult is to wait for the battle to commence first then go in and focus their dps. This would mean that an off tank has to initiate.



Singed: He is a pretty good initator as well. You can use ghost, boost, and insanity potion to charge in with poison trail and slow one of their squishies and toss them back and run back instantly. This will allow you to pick 1 off and snare/poison the other team if they want to run forwards to save the person that got tossed.

Janna: I like to set her up a little differently. People think of Janna as a squishy hero and that she cannot tank so its almost natural to try and jump and kill her asap. I like to run into a group of 5 a second a head of my team and drop a howling gale before I use my ult to blow 1-2 champions towards my team and the rest back. This will allow my 4 teammates to focus 1-2 champions and kill them quickly. If they focus me while my ult is up I will shield myself while simultaneously use my the gale which has been charging to knock they up in the air and go back behind my team.

There are several different tanks and different ways to initiate but the moral of the story is: If you are the tank, you have to run ahead. This will make the other team focus you. As the tank you want to tank the hits and charge towards their squishies or dps and disable them if you have it. Tanks with AOE disables are:Gangplank, Malphite, Amumu, Janna, Allistar, Rammus, Nunu, Morgana even Singed (Nasus doesn't have an AOE disable but is also an awesome tank).

But as a quick disclaimer, this will only work if your team is together and you plan on being organized. Because if you run in and no one follows up. You will die and the fight will quickly become a 4v5 which will lead to an infinite spiral of death.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Card Master Guide by Ben



Usually when I see someone at the loading screen and sigh' I know they are good. Ben has the most annoying card master I've ever played against. Enjoy!


[Guide] Twisted Fate - The Card Master


Base Stats - Who cares!


Skill Build
Level 1 - Pick a Card
Level 2 - Wild Cards
Level 3 - Wild Cards
Level 4 - Gate
Level 5 - Wild Cards
Level 6 - Destiny
Level 7 - Wild Cards
Level 8 - Pick a Card
Level 9 - Wild Cards
Level 10 - Pick a Card
Level 11 - Destiny
Level 12 - Pick a Card
Level 13 - Pick a Card
Level 14 - Gate
Level 15 - Gate
Level 16 - Destiny
Level 17 - Gate
Level 18 - Gate
You can swap Wild Cards for Gate at level 3 if you need to heal.


Summoner Spells
Exhaust / Flash


Runes
Red - Armor Pen
Yellow - HP / 18
Blue - Mana Regen / 18
Quint - Static HP (+118)


Masteries
9 / 0 / 21
Offense: 3 in AP, 1 in Exhaust, 4 in Cooldown, 1 in MR Reduction
Utility: 3 in Regen, 2 in Good Hands, 4 in %EXP, 1 in Greed, 3 in Mana Regen, 3 in Move Speed, 1 in Flash, 3 in Cooldown, 1 in last mastery.


Build Order
Meki Pendant
2 HP Potions
Chalice
Sorcerer Boots
Mejai Soulstealer
Elixir of Brilliance (Always have one on)
Sheen
Lich Bane
Zhongya's Ring


Level 1-5

The most important aspect to playing CM well is getting the timing for gold card down. You should be able to do it without even looking at your screen after it turns red. Basically just let it go from blue -> red, and then you need to get the timing for red->gold down without looking. It's pretty easy for me, but if you can't do it 90% of the time, I don't think CM is for you.
After the whole level 1 team fight or dragon or golem/lizard buff, head to a lane!
Harass with gold cards to gauge the damage on them. Don't harass with Wild Cards until it's level 2. Once you're level 3, and you've gauged damage of Gold Cards + Wild Cards, harass them until they will die from Gold Cards + Wild Cards + 2-3 regular hits.
They never expect the gold card + flash combo, I don't know why. But basically:

Lock Gold -> Flash In -> Exhaust -> Stun -> Wild Cards -> Regular Attack
And you'll likely get first blood (You can Exhaust after Stun if you need more hits).
At level 4 you'll probably run low on mana, just try to get 850 gold, so you can grab a chalice + boots when you blue pill to base. If you can't gank anyone, then just gate back to your lane and repeat above until level 6.


Level 6+
Lane until your Gate + Destiny combo is up, and then just notify your team and wait to setup a gank. Lock a gold card, Destiny, Gate behind them, Stun -> Wild Card -> Regular hit, and throw in Exhaust as needed.


In team fights, just try to get in as many gold card stuns as you can. Stay back, throw wild cards, and get gold cards. Don't use regular attacks. How useful you are at this point depends entirely on your gold card timing. As far as farming goes, once you get an elixir, you should be clearing waves with Wild Card.


General Notes
Basically, the more gold cards you land on the enemy during the game, the better you did. That is REALLY all there is to it. Even if it's just for harassment. Landing Gold Card + Wild Card combo for harassment hurts, and is great for farming.

Golem Buff is never a bad idea, it's actually not amazingly useful on CM, but if there's no other caster, go for it.


The reason for AP over DPS is simple. You will be too close to the fight as a DPS. CM isn't a tank, so just hang back, get gold cards, and toss wild cards. Don't go into the fray without a gold card, or a blue/red card if you are going to time into a gold card as you walk in.


If you're attacking a tower, just lock blue card over and over.
CM is also great at jungling once you hit level 5. Just stunlock with gold cards, and spam wild cards. So do get the 2 golems / 3 wolves / 4 ghoul spawn whenever you can.
Also, when you Destiny + Gate to kill someone in a gank, and you can't kill them after a standard combo, don't regular attack. Just start running to / ahead of them until Pick a Card cooldown refreshes. Then lock a gold, and do a 2nd combo from there.


Using Destiny
Aside from gold cards, CM's next best skill is Destiny. Do NOT use it to check vision unless you're 80% sure someone is jungling, and might be low enough for you to Gate in and kill with a Gold Card pre-locked.


Always have a gold card locked before you use destiny.
Destiny is MAINLY used in a team fight. Once you spot a group of enemies, and you're roaming with your teammates, as you pop out of brush / fog, use destiny, and stun with gold card. This lets your team easily engage them, and prevents them from running. It also messes their team fight capabilities, as the tanks won't be tanking, and it will be difficult for champions like Rammus to initiate. Players will also be more likely to mess up which champions to target and the timing of their skill casts.


Basically, casting Destiny right before / during a team fight is the best time.
The only other acceptable time to use it, is during Baron, in order to slow them from reaching you when Baron is almost dead or to stop them from doing Baron. But usually, wards/shrooms are used to prevent enemy Baron.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Team Composition - Tank Builds Armor/Resist Stacking

My last post I wrote about which are good tanks for teams. In this post I will follow up by explaining what you need to think about when you build a tank instead of an exact item build. I think I've made a similar post in the past about building a tank but I am going to post again about whatever is on my mind even if some of the information is a repeat.

In this post I do not want to get too into specifics with building a certain tank. But rather discuss what you want to think about when it comes to item selections and how to play a tank.

Building a Tank:
The most important aspect of building a tank is survivability and pulling aggro.

First off I want to talk about survivabilty. You want to have a lot of damage reduction because of several factors which I will list.

1. Your support will keep you up. So by having extra reduction you multiply the effects of their spell. Like Morgana/Janna's shield calculates in your reduction before it absorbs damage.

2. Having damage reduction basically increases the effectiveness of the heals cast on you.

3. Having armor is a lot more effective at tanking nashor rather than HP stacking.

Items that gives the most survivability are:
Ninja Tabi, Mercury Threads, Banshees Veil, Aegis of Legion, Guardian Angel, Frozen Heart and other situational items.

As you've noticed I did not mention warmogs armor, which is generally a very good item later in the game but easily overshadowed when you or your team has heals. I just feel that at low level the addition survivability added from armor and magic resist from items such as aegis and guardians angel you get so much more survivabilty. Just simply getting any of the two will increase your survivabilty by about 30%-50%. Then if you factor in heals and shields then the survivabilty goes up a lot more.

Anyhow as the tank you want to focus on how to counter the other teams damage. You want to identify how many casters and how many physical dps's are on the other team and build your tank accordingly. If you see heavy DPS focus more on Tabi, Aegis, GA, Wardeners Mail. If you see a lot of Casters focus on Mercury, Aegis, Banshee, GA. A chalice of Harmony is great if you are mana dependant and want to defend against casters.

Next Time, I will write about how to pull aggro and maintain it.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Coming Soon - CATourney Champs Video

Tournament Finals Video posted at http://www.solomid.net/media.htm
Also, an interview with some of the players will be posted.

Team Composition - Tanks

One of my readers asked me about team composition yesterday and asked that I write about it. The 3 important aspects of any successful team is tank/initiator, crowd control, and. I will start off with tanking, then I will move onto crowd control after I have fully covered tanking and so on for dps.

Starting with Tank/Initiator:
You want a champion that can run in there first to take hits and blow cool downs before your dps and crowd controlers come in. While they are blowing their cool downs your dps and crowd controllers can rush in to deal damage and not take hits because the enemies spells are all on cool down.

Champions that falls under the tank sections are: Malphite, Amumu, Sion, Singed, Nunu and Rammus.

If your tank happens to have a good initiating spell like Malphite and Amumu that can stun the opponents team then it is best to rush in simultaneously and pick 1 off instead of having the tank lead. Because Malphite can rush in with his ultimate and as an Amumu you want to carry flash to fully utilize his curse of the mummy ultimate.

Under the tank section: I would definitely always pick an Amumu or Malphite. Also looking at the top 3 teams in the Couch athletics tournament. Every team ran a Malphite and banned amumu. Those 2 tanks are game breaking.

The next post will be about how to build your tank, item wise to maximize survivability.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Taking a break for a day or two, sorry guys

Swamped with mid-terms and work. It's been taking a toll on me this weekend. Gotta man up and study for my mid term thru friday. Then Ill be back in full force.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Team Aon Round 1&2 Video Compilation



Heres the run down. For round 1 we ran a fun team and there were no real strategy involved. However, for round 2. Our strategy going into this was to just run the characters that we all play be independant of what the other team is doing. What we knew we wanted was definitely a Soraka and Morgana. Heal and shield for the win.

What we did was lvl 1 Ganks near the dragon and golem. We killed 2, then got the golem and went to our lanes. We lanes Soraka(dan)/Kayle(lasthit) vs Amumu Jax Bottom, Anivia(regi) vs Gangplank Mid, and Morgana(dyrus) & Teemo(cheesy) vs Twitch and Maphite.

Oh basic strat was just total lane domination/rune control/dragon control and roaming ganks by 7 minutes. We ran the same set up the second game with the same strat.

New Video - Sun Fire Twitch

Just a fun video Reginald made. Google is still audio swapping if there is no music.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Annie Guide by Dcgreen

Dcgreen’s Annie


This guide is written by Dcgreen. Another one of the players I respect. His guide offers a different perspective to Annie. It goes to show that even among the Pros player she is played differently.

Summoner Spells: Ignite and Flash

Runebook: Nothing is official, I mix and match her runes a lot still looking for something “perfect” but this is what I use for now.

9 static red hp runes
9 static yellow hp runes
9 static blue cooldown redux runes
3 exp +2% runes

Masteries
Offense:
3/3 Archmage Savvy
1/3 Deadliness
4/4 Sorcery
1/1 Archaic Knowledge

Utility:
3/3 Perseverance
1/3 Good Hands
4/4 Awareness
3/3 Meditation
2/2 Utility Mastery
3/3 Quickness
1/1 Blink of an Eye
3/3 Intelligence
1/1 Presence of the Master

Skills:
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Disintegrate
Tibbers
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Disintegrate
Incinerate
Tibbers
Incinerate
-15. Molten Shield
16. Tibbers
17.-18. Molten Shield

Levels 1-6
Buy Regrowth Pendant
Call solo mid, you want to be in a lane that is most likely going to have the fewest heroes and no grass. This also maximizes the effects of your leveling runes.
Use Disintegrate to farm as best as possible. It costs 0 mana if you get the last hit on a mob with it, a lot of people don’t know this even though its in the tooltip.

Harass your opponent as often as possible, the more damage you do without spending mana the better.

Every 5th spell you get a stun, use it on your opponent via disintegrate and then follow up with some autoattacks to maximize damage. Levels 1-5 you are basically buttering up your opponent to kill at lvl 6. If they are not smart and you can get a pre lvl 6 kill go for it.

When you get 640g go back to base and finish your philosophers stone and go back to your lane. This is to maximize the 5g/10s you get from it.
Don’t forget to use flash and incinerate.

If Tibbers is still alive after your first gank use him to clear your side or the opponent’s golem. You will be at the 40% cooldown cap thanks to masteries and runes. Plus you have infinite mana.

You want to continue farming your lane but also assisting the other lanes with ganks. You have crazy burst and excess levels because you are the solo. Get energized from farming in your lane and go assist top or bottom by initiating with your stun.

Get boots as your second item, upgrading them isn’t necessary right away.
Start building Mejai’s Soulstealer, this item is crucial to Annie and should be crafted asap.

Depending on the composition of the team you will make your boots into either Ninja Tabai or Mercury Treads. Annie is a squishy hero and you need to up her defenses and giving up 25ap on her boots is an easy way of doing this.
Next item to make is Rod of the Ages. This is a boring ass item but you need the extra health and mana to boost your defenses.
Keep Ganking people.

Levels 13-18
Your ap should be between 150-200, your health should be 1500-2000.
Keep snagging the golem buff everytime you can for the mana and cd redux.
In team battles it is important you let your tank initiate, never yourself because you are squishy.

Keep Molten shield on because you WILL get targeted.
Try and be energized before the battle begins so you can drop a Tibbers with a stun and really fuck some ones day up. Proceed to target the main assist and hit him with Disintegrate followed by Incinerate hitting as many people as possible.
Start itemizing for defense if you are getting heavily targeted in team battles. My favorite item for this is frozen heart.

If you are being allowed to burn everything alive itemize for more ap via Zhonyas. The main points to remember with Annie is that you have infinite resources to farm so you should never be under geared. You do the most burst damage in the early to mid game so take advantage of your stun for initiation, flash for chasing, and aoe for multiple target ganks. You can stop whole pushes with just Incinerate. When your team is pushing a tower you don’t do a lot of damage to them so it is best to go ahead and stop the next creep wave with your spells or to ward off defending heroes. If played right they will be afraid of you. Get the Deathfire Grasp when they reimpliment it, if they have a lot of tanks.

CouchAtlethics Tournament - Round 1

Tournament brackets are updated @ Solomid.net

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Blitzcrank Guide - by Korean

Blitzcrank




Summoner spells: Teleport/Flash or Teleport/Exhaust

You should always grab Teleport while playing Blitzcrank. There will be many times where your teammates will be fighting, and you will have the opportunity to teleport in and help out with Power Fist.

Flash is also a great summoner spell to get. You can flash in an initiate with a power fist. You can flash out to try to escape. Or flash in to power fist someone running away.
And some more advanced techniques would be flashing away, and grabbing them towards your tower/allies.

Exhaust is another option. If you are the more aggressive player, exhaust can help you and your teammates score that first blood. Later on as you reach Power Fist
level 5, exhaust + power fisting can keep your enemy by your side almost indefinitely. Exhaust is great for ganking.

Runes:
Marks- +Mana at level 18.
Seals- +Mana at level 18.
Glyphs- +Mana at level 18.
Quintessence- +Mana, or +Exp, or +Hp regen. Take advantage of these Quintessences early game. So grabbing the +Mana (not the level 18 ones), or exp boost,
or Hp regen can really make a huge impact on early-mid game. All 3 work well, and all depends on personal preference.

I believe runes are the most important thing that you can put on a Blitzcrank. They play the biggest impact on how a Blitzcrank can operate throughout
the game. And I have found that stacking mana runes will make you extremely hard to kill. And give you the mana pool that you need early game to spam Grabs.
I've tried various rune builds, cooldown builds, dodge builds, regen builds. Stacking mana seems to be the most effective. By level 18, runes alone
will net you somewhere near +800 mana. The reason why this is so effective is because of Blitzcranks passive. He forms a shield with his mana when he gets low
on hp. Having a large mana pool will allow you to stay at low hp for a long period of time, because people will be draining your mana instead of your hp. And just
natural player instinct, when you see low HP, you will aim for it. Little do they know, that youre still really hard to kill. While enemies are trying to get the
last hit on you, your teammates will be killing them. This is my personal little secret to get the edge on other Blitzcranks. And I might regret sharing this!

Masteries: 9-0-21

9 Points in Offense tree.
0 Points in Defense tree.
21 Points in Utility tree.

Get the extra cooldown reduction!

Skills:
Q - Rocket Grab
W - Overdrive
E - Power Fist
R - Static Field

1) Q or E. Depends on what your teammates want to do. E for early ganking (first blood). Q for regular laning.
2) Q or E. Whichever skill you didn't get for your first skill.
3) E.
4) Q
5) E.
6) R
7) E
8) W
9) E
10) W
11) R
12) W
13) Q
14) W
15) Q
16) R
17) Q
18) W

This is my personal skill order. W (Overdrive) comes in handy in a lot of situations. The extra speeed boost can help you get close to enemies to power fist.
Or to chase, and run away.

Items :

1) 1 Sapphire Crystal, 2 health pots.
2) Sapphire Crystal turns to Sheen
3) Boots of swiftness

This will be your cookie cutter build. A Blitzcrank with sheen is extremely effective. Once you have your sheen you should be trying to gank enemies.
Boots of swiftness is highly effective with Blitz as well. Topped off with his Overdrive skill, you can escape most situations. From here on, there
are a few ways to build a Blitz. But he should ALWAYS be built as a Tank/Support.

So take a look at your enemies champions. Your worst enemy is probably Veigar due to the rune build. If this is the case, try to get a Banshees Veil
asap. If the enemies teams' dps is mainly casters. Get magic resist. Banshees veil, Aegis, and Guardian Angel. However, if your enemies team is physical.
I'd suggest, Frozen heart, Aegis, and Guardian Angel.

My favorite item on Blitz is Frozen heart. It's cheap and effective and allows your Power Fist cooldown to be imba.

Keep in mind, mana is your friend!


How to play :

During the early game, I try my hardest to farm as fast as I can for the sheen. However, if your laning partner wants to be aggressive, then support him with your
grabs and your power fists. If not, then continue farming. Remember to use Blitzcranks power fist to farm mobs. You will deal double damage, so if you're having trouble last hitting, use this skill.

Concealing yourself in brush is a good strategy for Blitz. Grabbing people from brush so that you and your partner can jump on them gives you a huge advantage
early game. Also, try to use brush to your advantage. If you have a hero chasing you, run into some brush. Wait for them. When they get to you, power fist them in the air. And then resume
running. Continue to do this until you get away.

I don't think mindlessly rocket grabbing is a good idea. It has a pretty long cooldown for a regular skill, so I try to use my best judgement as to when would be
a good time to grab. Such as, when they are getting near your tower. Grabbing them to your allies. And most importantly grabbing when the enemy is running away.
Do not rush yourself when they are running away. Take your time. Most players will try to juke you out for the first few seconds, and then they'll walk a straight line. This will be your
opportunity.

Blitzcranks role is to support. Hopefully you are not forced to be the main tank. He can most definitely play the main tank role though if need be. When there is a group fight I will always try to run into the center and use his ult. And I try to stick onto the DPSer with Blitzcranks power fist.

It'll take some time to practice his play style and push his limits.

A good tip to keep in mind is to spam his E about halfway through the cooldown. You'll see the cooldown bar resetting but you can actually cast his E about
1 second faster than the cooldown bar actually shows. When I am chasing someone, I will constantly spam E with my left finger while right clicking on the enemy.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Clan AoN is Scrimming Riot Designer Team

Clan AoN will be scrimming the Riot Designer Team Sunday October 24 @ 2PM PST. We will covering the match afterwards via this blog and solomid.net. Videos will be posted shortly aftwerwards.

Karthus Guide by Reginald

Karthus- The Deathsinger




Summoner Spells:
Teleport
Flash

Rune book:
Nine Greater Marks of Resilience
Nine Greater Seals of Evasion
Nine Greater Glyphs of Insight
Three Quintessence of Fortitude

Masteries:

Offensive Tree:
3 points into Archmage's Savvy
1 point into Deadliness
4 points into sorcery
1 point into Archaic Knowledge

Defensive Tree: None

Utility Tree:
1 point into Spatial Accuracy
3 points into Perserverance
4 points into Expanded mind
2 points into Utility mastery
3 points into Meditation
3 points into Movement
1 point into Blink of an Eye
3 points into Intelligence
1 point into Presence of the Master

The Beginning:
1x Sapphire Crystal
2x Health Potion

Skill Build
Level 1: Lay Waste
Level 2: Defile
Level 3: Lay Waste
Level 4: Wall of Pain
Level 5: Lay Waste
Level 6: Requiem
Level 7: Lay Waste
Level 8: Defile
Level 9: Lay Waste
Level 10: Defile
Level 11: Requiem
Level 12: Defile
Level 13: Defile
Level 14: Wall of Pain
Level 15: Wall of Pain
Level 16: Requiem
Level 17: Wall of Pain
Level 18: Wall of Pain

How to use Lay Waste: Usually when lay wasting an opponent you must decide whether they are going to be offensive ( attack you) or defensive ( run away). After deciding whether they are running or not, you lay waste them depending on their course of action. The next thing a good karthus must know is the map and its surroundings. Try to imagine the pathing and the quickest way of escaping as if you were the one being focused by a Karthus. Never laywaste on top of an opponent, unless they are stunned. Always time 1 second ahead of their pathing and cast Lay waste at that point. Also when last hitting creeps, try to aim the Lay Waste at the side of a creep where your Lay Waste would only hit 1 creep. Doing so will make your damage do twice as much, making it very easy to last hit. Not only will it be easy to last hit, the lane will not be pushed as much. Keeping the lane on your side will make it harder for enemy champions to gank you and easier for your team to gank them.


Wall of Pain: Wall of Pain is a very good spell in all circumstances, offensively and defensively. This spell helps your magical damage take much more due to the reduction of magic resist. When using Wall of pain, try to use it in positions where your opponent does not see the wall. Doing so will increase your chances of killing an opponent. When an unexpected attack happens to an enemy champion, they would have a slower reaction than when they know it is coming. This spell is usually used for karthus to stand around a range of 200-300 (about half of max range) from their enemies. At that range it is perfect because ; Melees must take time to turn around and focus karthus, Karthus's Defile is also hitting his enemies aswell as lay wastes.


Defile: This spell is a very good AoE, but very mana inefficient. Usually this spell is used later in the game, or when Karthus gets the Ancient Golem buff. In many cases Karthus players usually forget to turn off defile, always keep an eye on your defile and toggle it off as soon as the enemy champion is out of range. In my experiences, i have seen many karthus's forget to turn defile off, therefore making them unable to kill their opponents due to lack of mana. Getting golem for Karthus's defile is a must. Always have a lookout for when Ancient golem is up. Keep track of the respawning time of the Ancient and kill it when it respawns. The respawn time is 5 minutes. With the Ancient Golem Buff, Karthus is very strong. The buff increases his farming ability, ganking ability and reduces his Requiem drastically.


Requiem: This spell is very straight forward, it deals a certain amount of damage per its level to all enemy champions on the map. However I see Karthus's miss kills daily, due to them not factoring in magic resist. Always expect Karthus's ultimate to take around 4/5's of the spells full damage or even less. Using this spell to its fullest potential, the Karthus must know how much magic resist the enemy champions have and estimate how much the requiem is going to deal. Magic resist has the same effect as armor, so if calculated briefly, it will be very easy to know when to cast Requiem for it to kill an opponent.


Builds on Karthus:

Tank Build-
Items to get in this order:
Tears of Godess
Ninja Tabi
Catalyst the protector
Rylai's Scepter
Turn Catalyst into Rod of Ages
Tears into Arcangel's Staff
Guardians Angel
Zhonya's Ring

End game items: Ninja Tabi, Arcangel's Staff, Rods of Ages, Guardian's Angel, Zhonya's Ring, Rylais Scepter.


Recommended Build
Ganking/ All out Damage build:
Items in this order:
Tears of Godess
Boots of Swiftness
Mejai's Soulstealer
Catalyst the protector
Turn Catalyst into Rod of Ages
Tears into Arcangels Staff
Guardians Angel
Zhonya's Ring
End Game items: Boots of Swiftness, Arcangel's Staff, Mejai's Soulstealer, Rod of Ages, Guardian's Angel, Zhonya's Ring

Tips:
Always look out for Ancient Golem Buff.
During team fights, be the second person to initiate after the tank.
Dont be scared to die.
When you are killed, Turn on your defile.
Don't cancel your ultimate on accident.
After getting Guardian's Angel, play really aggresive when its up. Sometimes even initiate. Use your flash to initiate and use wall of pain to slow them.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Items that wins games

Doran Shield - 435 G
+130 Health
+9 Armor
+8 Health Regen/5 seconds

This item is one of the best items to start with as a tank instead of a health pendant if you are not going to combine the health pendant into a higher tier item anytime soon. The armor and health gives additional survivability far pass what the extra regen the health pendant offers.

Aegis of Legion - 1925 G
+285 Health UNIQUE Aura:
+35 Armor / +40 Magic Resistance / +8 Damage to nearby allied champions.

This is a good item in any game becaues it has and aura that benefits the entire team! Generally your whole team will not stack armor or MR and will live off the base Armor/MR for the first 30 minutes of the game. The 40 magic resist your teammate gains from the aegis could me an 18-19% extra spell damage reduction. Additionally, the 35 armor will mean a 10-15% extra physical damage reduction.

Starks Fervor - 2700 G
+20% Attack Speed UNIQUE Aura:
Gives nearby allied Champions 20% Lifesteal, 25% Attack Speed, and 30 health per 5 seconds regenerated. Reduces the Armor of nearby enemy champions by 25.

This is best used on teams with a lot of physical dps. It will maximize the carrys dps and survivabilty at the same time furthering the dps by reducing the enemies armor by 20. I usually rush a starks when we have a team of 3 or more physical dps.

Frozen Heart -
+110 Armor 500 Mana UNIQUE Passive:
Reduces ability cooldowns by 25% and reduces the attack speed of nearby enemies by 25%

A solid item against a team full of physical dps and is great for players that are cool down and armor dependant. Counters the starks fervor.

Guardian Angel -
+75 Armor +30 Magic Resistance UNIQUE Passive: Revives your Champion upon death, restoring 50% of their health and Mana, this effect can only occur once every 5 minutes

Perfect Item for any tank. You run in you make players burst all their cool down, then you come back to fight. It also greatly improves your damage reduction so you can tank for a lot longer and better. A cool champion to use this with is Morgana. If she has a guardian angel, her ult will still proc when she is reviving. Also you can use your teleport in the time that you are reviving to exit ganks.

Videos are down due to too much complaints

The devs haven't said anything, but to appease the trolls I have taken them off temporarily.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Amumu and Kathas Video

Karthas and Amumu video by Reginald and Last Hit Magic. Its just a video of some good combos and micro skills. Leave some comments on what you think.

Soraka - How to Lane Soraka

In this post I will briefly show and explain to you how I lane my soraka. An important thing to note is that I play my soraka very agressively due to the survivability from her heal and her magic resist passive.


First-off, the thing I like to do the most is to get golem at level 1 with her star call ability. The ancient golem buff will increase her spam power to heal and deal damage. This also allows me to not get mana infusion as my second spell.

The next thing I like to do is to run past the creeps and harass other champions to prevent them from getting last hits and if I can push the far back enough to deny them exp.

The two summoner's spell I have is heal and ghost walk. It allows me to heal bait champions and dance around them while I starcall at the same time hunt other champions down. As a last resort it will allow me to escape and exit the battle.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Instant Teleport - Card Master Video

This is the same post as before. However, this time I've included a video on how to do it.



How to:
Its very simple. Just throw wild cards and teleport immediately. You want to do it while cardmaster is still doing the throwing animation. The completion of his attack animation forces the completion of his teleport channeling. It will take a few times to get the timing right.

This is a pretty cheap exploit because card master can enter a fight instantly anywhere on the map and leave instantly without dying.

Pro Tip - Annie Solo Ancient Golem

*DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE DUE TO GAME CHANGES*

Often times when Annie reaches level 6 she will charge up pyromania so she can roam and gank. What happens after you've finished your gank and still have time on your tibbers? One thing that most pros do is to use Tibbers to control the Elder Lizard or Ancient Golem Runes.

How to - Use alt to control Tibbers to go to any of the 4 runes on the map. Move Annie behind the walls of of the neutral mobs while running Tibbers to them directly. When you do that, Tibbers will immolate the creeps and they will try to target your champion. However, your champion will be safely on the other side of the wall. Tibbers will give you vision of the mob at the same time immolating it.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

League of Legends Guide - Annie by Reginald

Annie- The Dark Child
Also available at http://www.solomid.net/news and http://www.solomid.net/strategies.htm


Runes:
Nine Marks of Greater Resilience
Nine Seals of Greater Evasion
Nine Glyphs of Insight
Three Quintessence of Fortitude

Masteries:

Offensive Tree:
3 points into Archmage's Savvy
1 point into Cripple
4 points into Sorcery
1 point into Archaic Knowledge

Defensive Tree: None

Utility Tree:


1 point into Spatial Accuracy
3 points into Perseverance
4 points into Expanded mind
2 points into Utility mastery
3 points into Meditation
3 points into Movement
1 point into Blink of an Eye
3 points into Intelligence
1 point into Presence of the Master

Pregame Items:
Sapphire Crystal
Health Potion x 2

Leveling Skills:
Level 1: Incinerate
Level 2: Disintegrate
Level 3: Incinerate
Level 4: Disintegrate
Level 5: Disintegrate
Level 6: Summon: Tibbers
Level 7: Disintegrate
Level 8: Incinerate
Level 9: Disintegrate
Level 10: Incinerate
Level 11: Summon: Tibbers
Level 12: Incinerate
Level 13: Molten Shield
Level 14: Molten Shield
Level 15: Molten Shield
Level 16: Summon: Tibbers
Level 17: Molten Shiled
Level 18: Molten Shiled


Level 1: Incinerate
Adding a skill point into incinerate is very useful to the team because it is the deciding factor of an early team battle.

Tip: At level one add a skill into incinerate, and energize pyromani at the Reviving point. Doing so, you will acquire an AoE stun for 1.75 seconds by the 30 seconds mark. This very useful because in upper-level play, there will always be an early battle at dragon, Ancient Golem, or Ancient Lizard. Take advantage of Annie's AoE stun and grab First-blood. First blood at level 1 is very advantageous because the bonus 400 gold from that kill is equal to 20 creep kills and will help you outlane the enemy with the extra items bought.

Annie's Specialty: Annie is the type of hero that does massive burst damage and can easily kill an enemy champion within seconds of combat. Taking the Solo lane for Annie is the best decision in most cases. She is a very good ganker early and middle game. If she had farmed correctly she can be very powerful late game as well. Annie is the type of hero that is useful all-game, and especially devastating early game.

How to Lane: To dominate with Annie early game, it takes a very aggressive play-style but at the same time very passive. When Annie is Energized, play aggressive. When Annie is not Energize stay back to charge her stun. By level 2 you should take advantage of her Disintegrate. Constantly last hit creeps with Disintegrate to Energize yourself. When Energize is up Stun the opponent with Disintegrate and then Incinerate them (Offensive). Afterwards resume your passive play, back up and last hit creeps with Disintegrate to charge up your stun. (passive). When your Energize is up, follow up with another Disintegrate and Incinerate. Repeat the process until you think the hero is killable. Harass them until they are low enough to be killed. If you think you're able to kill them, charge up a stun and use your summoner spells(Exhaust and Flash) to go for the kill. . The trick to Annie is to lower the enemy champions health points enough for the opponent to think they are able to lane without dying, but not lower it enough for them to go back and heal. It is important to remember the opponents summoner’s spells at the preloading screen to gauge what they're capable of, when you are able to do so -- killing an opponent will be easy.

Disintegrate:
This spell is Annie's spammable spell that is mainly used to charge up Annie's stun (early game). It is very good in team fights and does massive overtime as well. In team fights, it is important to focus a target. Some examples of good targets to spam spells on in team fights are ; Ashe, Veigar, Tristana, mainly the paperweight/glass cannon heroes that are not very tanky.

Incinerate:
This spell is very tough to use. I see other Annies miss in battles far too often. Always position yourself behind heroes and cast it from far away. Make sure to always hit 2 or more heroes with your Incinerate.
Tip: When Energize is up, try to use Incinerate to AoE stun their whole team (when you are not Tibbers stunning)

Molten Shield:
Make sure to always use this spell during battle. Not only does it help Annie from taking less damage, but it helps Annie charge up her Energize. Doing this will lower the duration of how long it takes to charge up a stun. During a team fight, an Annie should beable to stun their team 2-3 times.

Summon Tibbers: Not only does this spell do burst spell damage, but Tibbers is very strong as well. The damage Tibbers does is similar to a sunfire cape. A good way to use Tibbers is to use it with Energized. When you are Energized, wait for the enemy team to group up before initiating with Tibbers+Energized. It usually requires flash to hit a good Tibbers stun/ that stuns the majority of the champions on the opposing side. Most Annies forget to use the Tibbers to do damage, however it is very useful. Tibbers can be used for; Tanking towers(while diving), blocking skill shots, and you can even chase with the Tibbers to kill someone that is low( dies to the 40 hp per second burn). To use Tibbers correctly, press Alt then click to move to the desired area. To micro both Annie and Tibbers, press Alt and clicking to move to a target area then letting go and click to move to the target area again. This will make Annie and Tibbers go to the same place. If you are able to follow an Enemy champion while doing that spamming Annie's Incinerate and Disintegrate, the enemy champion is sure to die.

Initiation: There are mainly two ways to initiate with Annie.
1. Wait for your tank to initiate first and wait for their team to gather up. Then initiate with a Tibbers stun. Afterwards, stay back and continue to nuke.
2. Flash on to their carry (ashe, tristana, the hero that does the most damage) Tibber stun, incinerate, disintegrate). With this situation, you need your team to follow up and disable the rest of their team. If not done correctly you will just die.

Option 1 is usually the best, however there are situations where their carry does massive damage and needs to be killed in order to win a team battle. This option allows you to output the most damage through time and constantly disable their opponents if your team is positioned correctly.

Option 2 is very good with a Guardians Angel because, not only does their team waste all of their nukes to kill you, their carry hero is most likely dead due to the massive burst damage Annie causes.

Item builds on Annie:

Cookie Cutter Build (burst damage)
First item: Sapphire Crystal to Tears of Goddess
Second item: Sorcerer's Shoes
Third item: Mejai's SoulStealer
Fourth item: Rods of Ages
Fifth item: Guardian Angel's
Sixth item: Zhonya's Ring

Next, turn your Tears of Goddess into Archangels Staff


Tank/Survivalbility (disable/dps through time)
First item: Tears of Godess
Second item: Ninja Tabi
Third item: Rods of Ages (get Catalyst first)
Fourth item: Guardian's Angel
Fifth item: Banshee's Veil
Sixth item: Zhonya's Ring

Next, turn Tears of Goddess into Archangels Staff