Critique My Personal Tier List

[Yvaelle]

Playing what you like and can have success with is by and large the most important thing, regardless of ap/ad/tank/assassin/whatever. But i would say counter picking is still important, less of you trying to counter pick them and more about not countering yourself. Sure you might like Vlad but if your opponents locked in tryndamere or nasus please take someone else, since its likely they picked them even without knowing their matchup because they can actually play them well.

I'd never Vlad vs Trynd because he's a jerk, but I actually like Vlad vs Nasus - you can still out-poke him, and if he finally does Whither / Q you, you just turn into a pool and run away - plus once you have Rylais the shoe is really on the other foot - suddenly Q is a spammable 40% snare

Also as an eve main i would never get abyssal on her. To much of it is wasted since she cares almost zero about spell pen and only partially wants ap. Hexdrinker is a better and cheaper option, and Liandries has the damage synergy with Rylais while also giving HP along with the pen/AP. I wouldn't recommend dead mans either since she has no problems getting to targets. It's more about sticking to them that matters, which rylais is amazing at. Personally i go runeglaive, tank boots, rylai, liandries, randuin, banshees with some variation on whos fed and who isnt.

That's about what my typical build looks like too - sorry I explained in an upward post that the original post was for my internal use and the items were just me thinking outloud: they weren't an actual build order - and often as your noticing it's me thinking about unusual picks for those champions.

In Eve's case I was thinking Abyssal when ganking mid with an AP mid on my team: so the Abyssal benefit would apply twice. I'd like to try Dead Man's plate because I figured the combination of roaming mobility always just makes Eve stronger and stronger (the "I'm right behind you" factor), and the initial 75% slow could help keep ganks in place for easier coordination of teammate skillshots/positioning, etc (it's like them having a 1 second slower reaction time I figure).


Edit: Deleted the item lists since that was just causing confusion.

[Artorius]

Ew, I don't know. it depends entirely on how comfortable you are at the positions. And if you want to play something for your team or for yourself.

All the junglers you mentioned are good for example, I'd add Gragas and Udyr though. They're both very safe and easy to play as tanks, Udyr can go aggressive quite efficiently if you make Devourer and ruined king combo instead of Cinderhulk. Gragas is just extremely safe and his ultimate can help a lot with baron/dragon steals.

If you feel like carrying the game as Jungler, consider learning Diana. You already have her at your midlane list, and she also works wonderfully well at the jungle if your midlaner doesn't beg for blue all the time and your team can wait for you to get lvl 6 before being useful. Just rush runeglaive and luden fast, game is yours. But be careful, she is addicting. And she's god tier.
Diana JG is my second most played champion If you need more details just ask

For the mid-lane you can be more versatile. Veigar is the new ridiculously OP champion. Annie is currently very strong. Ahri, Le-blanc, Azir, Viktor are all strong and solid picks but they're also what people are playing.

But mages aren't the only thing that work at mid. Varus for example is great, just spam Q forever. And the you have all the S3 AD mids: Zed, Talon, Riven, Lee sin, Olaf, Irelia, Jayce, Ezreal... Sometimes playing something that people aren't used at playing against works fine. And sometimes you'll feed hard.

For supports, it depends on your playstyle. I mean, really.

You can go ridiculously offensive with Sona and build Lich bane/luden just to poke them hard with the Hymn of Valor > Staccato combo. While still healing your ADC and providing damage reduction/slow to the trades. She has an amazing ult if you can land it (it's harder to land than Leona's for example), and is probably the best support to do damage. You win by doing pressure. There also aren't many Sona players, you can literally pick her at all the games if you want.
But my opinion might also be biased since I have more than 300 matches as Sona, she's my main and I love her.

Other good offensive supports are Thresh (I mean, really. He's awesome to play. You can do everything but heal), Blitz, Leona and maybe Karma. Only go Karma if your ADC is something like Draven and you can simply play the trade-game.

If you like the defensive playstyle then Leona is still good. Other options are Braum, Alistar, Taric and Nautilus.

If you want to play something that has the potential to be a pain in the ass then Annie/Morgana. Lux also works but the other 2 are better.

Janna is the best at the engage/disengage, also helps a lot at trades due to her dmg buff and knock-up. Janna/Sivir is the best matchup to help the team with utility.

Soraka is very strong at prolonged team fights.

Top I don't know, just pick whatever you like the most. Fiora, Riven, Vlad, Darius and Irelia would be what I'd pick if I played top.

ADCs...

Caitlyn for when you don't know what to pick, her longer range helps a lot.

Sivir for when you don't know what to pick but can play a short ranged ADC.

Ashe for when you really don't know what to pick and don't want to play with Cait/Sivir.

Kalista/Draven/Vayne/Jinx/Kog/MF if you have a good matchup and know how to play them. They're all very strong at good hands, Kalista being the most annoying to play against.

[Yvaelle]

Not a fan of Gragas / Udyr - actually that reminds me to be excited for Kindred though - seems right up my alley!

Diana is my second most played champion too, right after Evelynn - but part of that is because I've been playing her Jungle/Mid/Top as a back-up pick since she came out: I'm very comfortable on her - but I'm trying to move away from her as a Jungler because I dislike the unpredictability of Q landing for ganks. Missing a Q and not diving is fine in mid, but as a Jungler you really need that to land the first time, when they are out of position - that's somewhere where Elise / Evelynn have more consistent engages.

LeBlanc is my old go-to mid, but I feel the nerf wave awhile back hit her really hard - plus the current meta isn't favourable to her: you don't want to LeBlanc as example, against Diana or Annie or etc. If she gets buffed a bit again - or when the meta shifts - I'll definitely use her more again. I love her mobility / wall jumping / deception playstyle - but she doesn't have much control: and I'm really liking the look of the control mid scene lately for teamfighting (Viktor, Malzahar, Annie, being good examples).

Jayce is a toss-up with Varus for me, but Varus has much cleaner build paths and safer poke: plus again that AOE CC for teamfights with his ult. Jayce is better at roaming and such, but he doesn't bring any CC to a teamfight the way I want my new Mid line-up to do.

Maybe I'll give Sona another shot - I have Arcade Skin after all ^^ What do you build on her though? I feel like her mana management became atrocious with the last rebuild and I think that's when I wrote her off. Do you go Tear? Athenes? Morellos and/or gold items don't cut it anymore.

[Kasierith]

Jungle: my main issue with Elise is that she falls off late game; you HAVE to have a team that knows how to close out a game in order to succeed on her, otherwise even if you get an early lead things could easily fall apart. Fine with it if I'm part of a team, but solo queue not as much.
Evelynn is basically a macro-level skill matchup. Knowledgeable warding essentially negates her early presence. She's still strong as a strange tank late game, but she's at her best in lower to mid level ranks where the enemy doesn't know how to do aggressive early warding.
Rek'sei: very strong choice and a safe one, strongest where you expect to have to protect your own jungle. She should probably be at least a part of any competitive jungler's kit because of her strong defensive capacity and safe ganking.
Nidalee: not entirely sure how well she's doing in the juggernaught meta. She shines when she can drive the high dps on their team out of the fight and essentially force a 5v4, but we're in a patch where a great deal of damage is on beefier damage dealers. The current strength of Braum is also a problem; wide wall to help wtih the shield, and he can punish an all in from a squishy champion hard.
Warwick: he takes a loooooong time to enter into the game, and while I like the strength of that level 6 gank, it's hard to justify 5 levels of inactivity with an overall slow if steady clear speed. I'd consider J4 over him any day, because his ult is effectively as strong and he has a very strong early presence. I also tend to want to avoid junglers that are basically hamstrung if their blue gets invaded.
Shyvana has a long ramp up time, which is currently a pretty problematic position to be in. She's facing the same problem in lanes right now, which is why we aren't seeing as much of her; she's strong, she just doesn't start out so.
Olaf: ehhh, with a jungler pool as diverse as it is now, there isn't much justification for picking a jungler who has to plod into lane and try to aim a skilshot with the payoff being a decent slow. The only lane where simply running up is that effective is the shortest one where chase cc is pretty weak.


Mid: I like the malz quite a bit. Solid solo champion who doesn't need a lot of help, gives lots of flexibility with easy lane pushing and extra tower damage for a mage, and it's very hard to 1v1 him.
Diana: High risk high reward in current meta. Have to remember that in the juggernought meta the essential problem that melee assassins are facing is that they have to go through that angry darius in order to get to the squishies. You have to basicaly either be far enough ahead that this isn't a problem or a team that is willing to engage with you.
Viktor: overall very strong choice, but he is probably the hardest skillshot champion in the game. I'd be very comfortable with everything in his kit before bringing him to ranked, but once there there isn't much that can force him out and he's shining right now.
Twisted fate: again comes to having to trust 4 people to do what they need to do. Twisted fate is also absolutely dependent on good positioning and map awareness, because one step out of line and it's over.
Varus: Like above but moreso because you don't even have a hard stun. You have to trust your team to protect you and follow up with your pokes, and also be patient enough to let you do your work. I respect him in team play. I don't trust my team in solo queue with him though.

Support
Janna: one of my favorites, safe, flexible, strong in the juggernaught meta for pushing enemies back. I don't first pick her often because she's a great counterpick, but she's a very solid champion. But a LOT of people underestimate her playstyle. You actually can essentially carry a lane with her even with a lackluster adc (as long as they aren't beyond bad). She has an extremely high skill cap.

Annie: pretty good because of her flexibility. You have the option in the middle of the game to either go nuker and keep the lead you have from ever ending, or just go high survivability high CDR to essentially be an immortal cc bot.

Blitzcrank: not my favorite right now when there's so many high value champions that would really like you to bring them into your team.

Thresh:currently my safe pick. Good protection, good utility, good aggressive kit, nothing really standing out among them. If I blind pick support, I typically go thresh.

Sona: very good support for aggressively forcing the team to do what you want. Very easily punished for small mistakes. Hard to play with from behind. I love sona, but I'll only pick her if I'm feeling very cocky that day.

Lux: extreme mana issues, and ultimately dependent on being ahead. I don't like paying her because she's high risk, and her reward isn't any better than annie. There's really no reason to pick lux support when annie exists, imo.

Morgana: one of my favorite supports overall because you can essentially counterbalance having a stupid team member.

will go through the rest in a little bit

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe I'll give Sona another shot - I have Arcade Skin after all ^^ What do you build on her though? I feel like her mana management became atrocious with the last rebuild and I think that's when I wrote her off. Do you go Tear? Athenes? Morellos and/or gold items don't cut it anymore.

With sona, I typically go high activated ability items and tankiness. I even get warmogs on her, though that's pretty unusual, and she's one of my strongest supports so I feel pretty comfortable with my item choices. Sona has a lot of flexiblity because of her decent and very versatile ratios, though, so there's a lot of viable ways to gear her. It's just fun for me to be that "hey, I have 5 tricks up my sleeve, good luck getting your lead back suckas" person.

Typically, I'll go something like swiftness boots, mikaels crucible, aegis, spooky ghosts, warmogs, and talisman, have sightstone replacing one of those. Switching things in and out depending on how the game is going.

[Artorius]

Maybe I'll give Sona another shot - I have Arcade Skin after all ^^ What do you build on her though? I feel like her mana management became atrocious with the last rebuild and I think that's when I wrote her off. Do you go Tear? Athenes? Morellos and/or gold items don't cut it anymore.

What I normally do is start with Frostfang/pots/ward, buy sheen/sightstone at the first back, then Lich bane as first real item.

If the game is hard and you're not receiving gold, you can start with chalice and build Athene's right away. Ardent censer is a good item.

If it's easy then you can simply go Sightstone > LB > Ionian > Luden's > Rab/Zhonia's > Athene's/Zhonia's. You should be able to kill enemy carries with one or two Q > Staccato combos. Burst is insane, healing is insane, mobility is insane. But you'll be squishy.

[Kasierith]

What I normally do is start with Frostfang/pots/ward, buy sheen/sightstone at the first back, then Lich bane as first real item.

If the game is hard and you're not receiving gold, you can start with chalice and build Athene's right away. Ardent censer is a good item.

If it's easy then you can simply go Sightstone > LB > Ionian > Luden's > Rab/Zhonia's > Athene's/Zhonia's. You should be able to kill enemy carries with one or two Q > Staccato combos. Burst is insane, healing is insane, mobility is insane. But you'll be squishy.

The problem that I have with the full AP sona is that unless you're so far ahead that you have no problem completing items, for most of the game you're going to be behind a utility build and even then if their adc lets you get close enough to aa his positioning is terrible. Unless you're stealing a bunch of kills. But overall, I tend to dislike projected build paths that depend on you dominating the enemy team because at that point you might as well go full AD sona and it wouldn't make much of a difference.

[Artorius]

The problem that I have with the full AP sona is that unless you're so far ahead that you have no problem completing items, for most of the game you're going to be behind a utility build and even then if their adc lets you get close enough to aa his positioning is terrible. Unless you're stealing a bunch of kills. But overall, I tend to dislike projected build paths that depend on you dominating the enemy team because at that point you might as well go full AD sona and it wouldn't make much of a difference.

AD Sona with Muramana and Trinity force is funny to play.
(Yes I play Sona adc at normal games sometimes, also mid, top and jungle. Jungle is the hardest but still funny)

My personal opinion about Sona support is that her abilities aren't going to make much of a difference unless you build AP. Sure you can make a more generic support build with mikael's and talisman, but you're going to be able to be more impactful with a AP build. Sure, if gold isn't coming then you have no choice.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Vayne is the best ADC ONLY if she have a strong initiator to force the fights.
If you are playing the "poke" game she loses hard.
But if you have a Leona or a Blitzcrank you have no choice but to fight...and fighting 1v1 VS a Vayne is impossible (2 possible 3 stealths + 10% true damage + true damage from BotrK)

I personally think Vayne only loses with a strong "poke game". Otherwise she is the best duelist of ADC's.
Ofcourse that Corki, Caitlyn, Jinx, Tristana are more powerfull in the "poke game" but if a fight starts with both partys at full health Vayne wins everytime.

But only Doublelift, hi im Gosu ,Piglet, Uzi and Imp use her sometimes. Must be because of her poor range on teamfights/ laning phase.
Very rarely seen on Worlds also.

You can pink ward to stop the invisibility and botrk doesn't do true damage. The proc is reduced by armor. All it takes is one solid stun or burst combo plus a pink ward to kill vanye.

[Deleted]

You can pink ward to stop the invisibility and botrk doesn't do true damage. The proc is reduced by armor. All it takes is one solid stun or burst combo plus a pink ward to kill vanye.

I was talking about bottom lane fights 1v1 and 2v2.
She is a God in those fights, with only a BotrK might as well be true damage vs a armorless target like an ADC.
One solid stun or burst combo is enough to kill any ADC not only Vayne.
But you are right one pink ward is enough to make it a fair fight.

In my eyes Vayne leaves a trail of blood everywhere she goes. Her fingers and panties are drenched in blood dude.
Everybody hates Vayne

(i see post on official LoL forums everyday saying "nerf vayne plz", "ideas to nerf vayne", "vayne OP")

[Kasierith]

I was talking about bottom lane fights 1v1 and 2v2.
She is a God in those fights, with only a BotrK might as well be true damage vs a armorless target like an ADC.
One solid stun or burst combo is enough to kill any ADC not only Vayne.
But you are right one pink ward is enough to make it a fair fight.

In my eyes Vayne leaves a trail of blood everywhere she goes. Her fingers and panties are drenched in blood dude.
Everybody hates Vayne

(i see post on official LoL forums everyday saying "nerf vayne plz", "ideas to nerf vayne", "vayne OP")

The difference is that Vayne is much shorter ranged and she can't duck in and out; she needs to get those procs to be at her best in tank melting, which requires more commitment. So she leaves herself more vulnerable if her survival ability, the invisibility, is knocked out. Unlike say, Jinx who has insane long range damage or Trist who can commit halfway through a fight and chain her jumps, or Kalista who is more mobile and also rapidly builds up a significant amount of kill pressure (you have to either kill her or pull away before her rend stacks become insane) within that safety.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

I was talking about bottom lane fights 1v1 and 2v2.
She is a God in those fights, with only a BotrK might as well be true damage vs a armorless target like an ADC.
One solid stun or burst combo is enough to kill any ADC not only Vayne.
But you are right one pink ward is enough to make it a fair fight.

In my eyes Vayne leaves a trail of blood everywhere she goes. Her fingers and panties are drenched in blood dude.
Everybody hates Vayne

(i see post on official LoL forums everyday saying "nerf vayne plz", "ideas to nerf vayne", "vayne OP")

Not really Tristana and Twitch out range her. Twitch has 850 range with his ult up and can burst her down before she can play. Tristana has to watch out for condemn but twitch can just out range it.

[Charge me Doctor]

Not really Tristana and Twitch out range her. Twitch has 850 range with his ult up and can burst her down before she can play. A

She can dodge 1-3 of his ult-"enhanced" attacks and reduce their damage by rolling behind creeps/allies and pop Twitch much faster than he will pop her

[Deleted]

you may wanna give veigar a try, in solo queue if you do it right you can just oneshot their carries, especially easy at low elo

you can also engage for your team with the E stun if your tanks are again too dumb

[Marbas]

I am surprised noone here mentioned Rengar. As a jungle main, Rengar almost exclusively carried me to diamond 3. In Diamond, he is banned in many games, but as i remember from gold to diamond he was open 80% of my games.
With that said i think you should give him a try and put him on your list. You even said that you want some ad junglers He can be played top lane aswell with really good results, but i dont really have much experience with him top lane.
I also find him really fun to play and obviously can single handedly carry games. I remember in gold, i was rushing sword of the occult with him in many many cases (althought tiamat is much safer option without lowering your burst that much and also makes you decent farmer) and was carrying HARD :P
So yeah, i think you should give him a try Good luck in your quest to Diamond!
P.S I think he is so strong in solo queue and can help you climb (need to practice him ofc), that even i, logged in to write this comment (usually i dont have the time, cba, to be active in the forum:P)

[Kasierith]

Rengar is decent at lower tiers, but faces the same problem as eve in that the higher you get, the smarter the other team is about putting in wards to screw you up. He's an all or nothing champ, ultimately, and its possible to take out that all and leave him a defenseless little kitty.

[Yvaelle]

Rengar is decent at lower tiers, but faces the same problem as eve in that the higher you get, the smarter the other team is about putting in wards to screw you up. He's an all or nothing champ, ultimately, and its possible to take out that all and leave him a defenseless little kitty.

^ I actually find Rengar is in some ways worse than Eve - Eve's kit isn't designed around using Stealth in combat: so it's not like you can pink ward to cancel her ult. Rengar loses a lot of combat power with good use of a ward - but Eve simply has her gank spotted. Plus, if you run Sweeping Lens Eve, and your team can communicate, you can just blackout the pink (wards lose vision when lensed) and walk right over top of where they thought they were safe.

Rengar is certainly a terror in lower tiers though - but enemy green wards can make him stand around in a bush all game thinking you are going to come close but never quite close enough - because you see him in there and your toying with him - and a single pink ward can screw up his ultimate and prevent his pounce engage. I like kitties and stealth, but I think Rengar is overrated - Eve/Nidalee fulfill my needs =^.^=

[Duronos]

Rengar is decent at lower tiers, but faces the same problem as eve in that the higher you get, the smarter the other team is about putting in wards to screw you up. He's an all or nothing champ, ultimately, and its possible to take out that all and leave him a defenseless little kitty.

You're joking right? He's pretty much banned 7 games out of 10 in my elo which is around the same as Marbas though I have no idea what server he's on. Fuck Rango, he's generally speaking quite broken and has needed a nerf on his damage for awhile.

Not to be rude to anyone but to say any champion doesn't work in higher elo's is quite untrue, you'll find that champions like Shaco, Rango, Fiddlesticks have much higher win rates the higher you go because you get players that actually know how to play them so yes they work in high elo.

[Deleted]

who's Rango

[Jibjabb]

who's Rango

[Kasierith]

You're joking right? He's pretty much banned 7 games out of 10 in my elo which is around the same as Marbas though I have no idea what server he's on. Fuck Rango, he's generally speaking quite broken and has needed a nerf on his damage for awhile.

Not to be rude to anyone but to say any champion doesn't work in higher elo's is quite untrue, you'll find that champions like Shaco, Rango, Fiddlesticks have much higher win rates the higher you go because you get players that actually know how to play them so yes they work in high elo.

I said he faces problems at higher tiers that you won't find at lower ones, not that he wasn't playable, doesn't work, or anything of the sort. The reason why he has such a high ban rate is that people who are smart don't want to spend all that energy putting down deep wards and having to change their playstyle just to deal with him. Because ultimately, it's far more annoying to deal with a champion that changes how you play than it is to deal with an overpowered champion.

As for him being overpowered.. umm.. learn better warding. You counter rengar by denying him kills, and he falls off naturally on his own if he isn't ahead just by protecting your squishies from an initial burst spike.