The League of Legends thread

[Ergar]

Because if she goes full Assassin build she just gets blown up. Any single CC and she dies, the point is that now she can eat multiple CC's and still kill the ADC relatively fast.

This and she doesn't really fit anywhere atm as an assassin. She'd get destroyed toplane, and mid you can just pick someone who survives her burst/can outrade her.

I get the feeling he's playing a very different game to me. Tankali (totally a thing now) can't be out traded? Every time she's gotten close to me top lane she's always come out worse for it, and she doesn't have the poke to really be threatening without getting into melee.

Well Solorenektononly is very high elo, so he is sorta playing a different game depending on your rank. Also the skill level of the Akali is probably a factor aswell, although she isn't the hardest to play.

In the end though i can't really talk much about her. I don't play her, and so far haven't seen her at all in any of my games.



E: Does anyone here play GP more than me who can tell how the fuck do i beat Swain in lane? Even after rushing executioner's calling i couldn't do shit without ganks. Barrels didn't do much since he could just heal the damage up, even with executioners debuff on him.

Did i just play bad, or is it a matchup that you can't beat?

[Yvaelle]

Swain is just a goofy champion right now - he needs a redesign IMO. It's not overpowered - it's just an out of place design nowadays.

The only things I can think of for GP vs. Swain top, is to catch him away from your wave so he can't heal (off anyone but you, anyways), and to let him push then gank him (since he has no mobility). I'm sure it's a rough match-up though. Focus on farming, saving everything for ganks on him, and landing your ult for assists on other lanes: just keep farming, landing good ganks when he overextends, and projecting force into other fights (with your ults): that's something you do better than he does.

[Ergar]

It was actually mid instead of top that game. Could pretty easily kill him with ganks, but other than that i couldn't do shit. The only reason we even won that game was because we had GP, Nasus and Vayne, and we got to lategame with full builds on everyone.

Really enjoying GP though. The nerfs didn't do shit to him tbh, can still win a teamfight with a single well placed barrel chain. Easily my favorite champion after Wukong atm.

[StrawberryZebra]

Because if she goes full Assassin build she just gets blown up. Any single CC and she dies, the point is that now she can eat multiple CC's and still kill the ADC relatively fast.

If you're eating multiple CC's with an ADC around, you're probably dead whoever you are. Tank build or not. In theory it sounds great having the other team use multiple CC's on the same person, however you also need your team to have other threats that need CCing too, to make using it on Tankali the wrong choice, and for your Tankali to get enough of a lead to warrant that much CC thrown at her. In practice the idea goes completely out of the window if the other team has lots of AoE CC. Or simply has Nautillus, he's enough CC by himself, or Poppy or even Janna. And all of those are popular picks at the moment.

Kayle, Zilean and/or Tahm are probably on their way back in too, given all the anti-carry stratergies going around at the moment. If the trend keeps up I'd also expect to see Mordekaiser sneak back in too, he's one of the few "ADC's" that can deal with Assassins to the face.

Swain is just a goofy champion right now - he needs a redesign IMO. It's not overpowered - it's just an out of place design nowadays.

I said the same thing when they announced the Mage Updates. I get the feeling that whatever they end up doing with Vlad is going to have more of an impact on what they do with Swain than anything else. They both suffer from what is essentially the same problem, you either can't kill them fast enough and they're outrageously powerful, or you can kill them before they have any real impact at all.

He needs a complete redo from scratch really to get him in to a better place. I personally would love to see him become more of a Battlefield Commander type champion than the lifesteal tanky Bird-man he is currently. I'm not sure its a direction that Riot would be comfortable taking however, his bird form is by far his most iconic and identifiable ability.

[Ergar]

If you're eating multiple CC's with an ADC around, you're probably dead whoever you are. Tank build or not. In theory it sounds great having the other team use multiple CC's on the same person, however you also need your team to have other threats that need CCing too, to make using it on Tankali the wrong choice, and for your Tankali to get enough of a lead to warrant that much CC thrown at her.

The point i think we're trying to make here is that the reason she's so good is that she WILL kill your adc if left alone. Take someone like Malphite or Naut, no fucking way will they kill an adc on their own during a teamfight since they are relatively easy to kite. You can't kite Akali, you can't kill akali on your own as an adc unless you're relatively fed, and she will kill you because of her good base values and the sunfire damage.

You take your Nautilus to go deal with Akali? Great, now their adc/mage has free reign to dps the fuck out of you. You waste your Nautilus ult/other cc on her? Even better since she can probably survive it due to her tankiness and shroud, and your dps doesn't have to deal with that.

[Noxina]

The clue with Akali, is the fact that her base damage is rather good. She don't need damage items to kill someone 1v1, and having a more tanky build makes he a lot scarier to be honest, simply because you can't kill her in one stun.
A carry Akali is dead if anyone on the enemy team got a sweep/pink with them, a tank Akali will laugh at that stuff, go out of her shroud and kill their carry while doing so.

It's all fun and games that you people theorize so much, and question why things are done, but when something as odd as Tankali (I like that one!) is played and Solorenekton ranks her nr 5, well lets say there is a reason as to why. Best rule of the thumb - follow the top players, they theorize and play LoL as their job. They have meetings where they talk about stuff, and they spend hours testing everything out. It's a reason they are top, while us others are down gold, or silver

[Sal the Shieldhog]

Aurelion Sol has three unique interactions with Taric. All of them deal with him being an Aspect, similar to Pantheon, Diana, and Leona:

"The Aspect of Targon? Sparks masquerading as lightning"

"I will cauterize Targon with starfire!"

"You're an aspect? Let me guess...tackiness"

All aboard the Hype Train!



As a side note, his login theme is out and it's awesome:


Love the music.

[StrawberryZebra]

The point i think we're trying to make here is that the reason she's so good is that she WILL kill your adc if left alone.

If left alone being the key part of that sentence, I feel. The same is also true of Riven, Dr Mundo, Shyvana etc. You're probably not going to run into many teams who are just going to let you do it. Building tanky means you can survive being CCed one or twice without getting a free trip back to the fountain, but unless Tankali is way, way ahead she's still not going to survive being locked down by Naut or Leona while an ADC shoots at her. And sure, it means they can't then use that CC on anyone else, but do they need to? They've already saved their highest damage dealer from their biggest threat, assuming the rest of the team fight hasn't gone catastrophically bad you should be set up well for winning it.

If the other team has both Tankali and another must CC target then you've almost certainly picked around that fact to begin with. They don't have to be top laners, plenty of junglers and supports also bring a lot of CC to the table. Even plenty of common mage mids bring some form of CC, so its not as if it uncommon to have enough on a team to deal with more than one person.

The only reason Shyvana gets away with it is because she's usually got a 4 level and 2500 gold advantage, and thats the only situation I've seen Tankali get away with it too. I make no claims at being a great player, currently in Promo's to Plat 1, but I've seen barely any be successful. It could be due to her being top lane, where she constantly gets either bullied out, or has very little kill pressure. I have the feeling she would do a little better mid building tanky against other melee Assassins who won't itemise against her specifically and can't usually deal too well with frequent trades.

Or it could just be that I've run in to, mostly, just bad Tankali's who jumped on the bandwagon because it was something new they wanted to try out.

Aurelion Sol has three unique interactions with Taric. All of them deal with him being an Aspect, similar to Pantheon, Diana, and Leona

Does he indeed? I guess I was wrong about that one then. I figured they'd stick him in with the rest of the Demacian's as a noble and righteous, but stylishly dressed Paladin. Space Mountain Paladin Taric it is. All hail our sparkling new support overlord, may his outrageousness never again become meme-worthy!

[Duilliath]

Or it could just be that I've run in to, mostly, just bad Tankali's who jumped on the bandwagon because it was something new they wanted to try out.

Apparently, you keep missing the fact that people are not talking about silver level games. They are talking about Challenger / Master players. Don't confuse your anecdotal evidence of people being shit at a champion for what you expect to go on at higher level of play.

[Karrotlord]

So Hextech Crafting is out and I got Lunar Wraith Morgana. Curious as to what everyone else opened in their first chest.

[Noxina]

If left alone being the key part of that sentence, I feel. The same is also true of Riven, Dr Mundo, Shyvana etc. You're probably not going to run into many teams who are just going to let you do it. Building tanky means you can survive being CCed one or twice without getting a free trip back to the fountain, but unless Tankali is way, way ahead she's still not going to survive being locked down by Naut or Leona while an ADC shoots at her. And sure, it means they can't then use that CC on anyone else, but do they need to? They've already saved their highest damage dealer from their biggest threat, assuming the rest of the team fight hasn't gone catastrophically bad you should be set up well for winning it.

If the other team has both Tankali and another must CC target then you've almost certainly picked around that fact to begin with. They don't have to be top laners, plenty of junglers and supports also bring a lot of CC to the table. Even plenty of common mage mids bring some form of CC, so its not as if it uncommon to have enough on a team to deal with more than one person.

The only reason Shyvana gets away with it is because she's usually got a 4 level and 2500 gold advantage, and thats the only situation I've seen Tankali get away with it too. I make no claims at being a great player, currently in Promo's to Plat 1, but I've seen barely any be successful. It could be due to her being top lane, where she constantly gets either bullied out, or has very little kill pressure. I have the feeling she would do a little better mid building tanky against other melee Assassins who won't itemise against her specifically and can't usually deal too well with frequent trades.

Or it could just be that I've run in to, mostly, just bad Tankali's who jumped on the bandwagon because it was something new they wanted to try out.



Does he indeed? I guess I was wrong about that one then. I figured they'd stick him in with the rest of the Demacian's as a noble and righteous, but stylishly dressed Paladin. Space Mountain Paladin Taric it is. All hail our sparkling new support overlord, may his outrageousness never again become meme-worthy!

So because you've met some "meta players" that sucks at Akali because they got no clue how to play her, she is automatically bad? I am a low Gold player, but still understand what you seem to not.
Just look at this: http://probuilds.net/champions/details/Akali There is a reason why people play her Tanky, not because "it is a fun and new build". It works, try searching it up on youtube, try to do some research and don't base your statement around someone you've met ingame playing her badly.

[Dundebuns]

I tried Tankali a couple of times but was bad with it. I think I'll stick with Gnar and Vlad

[Jibjabb]

So because you've met some "meta players" that sucks at Akali because they got no clue how to play her, she is automatically bad? I am a low Gold player, but still understand what you seem to not.
Just look at this: http://probuilds.net/champions/details/Akali There is a reason why people play her Tanky, not because "it is a fun and new build". It works, try searching it up on youtube, try to do some research and don't base your statement around someone you've met ingame playing her badly.

interesting most of those are in the jungle. Ive yet to see one of those and am kinda skeptical of how effective it is, i guess once 6 her ganks would be ok? I assume its to mask her rather poor early game when being played in top lane. Still, if I got a CC-less jungle Id prefer to have a Yi or Evelynn or something like that

[Yvaelle]

Does he indeed? I guess I was wrong about that one then. I figured they'd stick him in with the rest of the Demacian's as a noble and righteous, but stylishly dressed Paladin. Space Mountain Paladin Taric it is. All hail our sparkling new support overlord, may his outrageousness never again become meme-worthy!

It would be cool if they went with a kind of support/juggernaut role for him - low mobility but ultra tanky, a powerful stun and heal, etc.

I think his armor shatter is outdated - that should be the ADC's job to build however much armor pen they need.

If he's a mountain, maybe he can command the dirt or something? It may be cool to give him either a ranged root - soil liquefaction - or something like Trundle's pillar where he can cut off enemy escape / pursuit.

Q - AoE Stun
W - Build a wall like a Victor death beam (mouse flick to define the direction/shape you want it)
E - Powerful single target heal
R - Ranged AOE root + damage

So he doesn't move fast, but he's super dangerous in close range, where he can root/stun/block people. He doesn't contribute a lot to lane trades, but he can decide when they occur with the root/block, and/or decide when they end (again with the root/block).

He and Malphite are both mountains now, so that's weird... will they be bros because of it - or do mountains have rivalries?

[Deleted]

I wouldn't play Taric in Japan. Or at least i would desperately try to avoid dying looool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGJYwWqnQfk&t=0m16s

His laugh is fabulous though.

[StrawberryZebra]

So because you've met some "meta players" that sucks at Akali because they got no clue how to play her, she is automatically bad?

Just because all the pros are doing it doesn't mean its automatically good either. There was a time in Dota where Pro players were starting with double Rings of Protection, and after the community picked up the idea and looked into it, it worked out as being far worse than other defencive starting options in all but one situation for one Hero. Yet the pro's kept on doing it despite it being mathematically worse. Going along with things because "all the cool kids are doing it" has been responsible for more smokers than anything else.

As Duliath pointed out, players at the very highest levels do what works because those things work at the very highest levels of play. That doesn't mean they work all the way down to the bottom, in the same way that things that work at the very bottom don't work at the top. So I decided to do some research, as suggested.

Looking at her win rates on Probuilds its sitting at a miserable 43%. Comparing the win data from Tankali vs Assassin Akali from the data on Probuilds from the past Month, Assassin Akali has won 10 games, Tankali has won 7. Akali has 38 games listed, of those 38, 17 of them were Tankali builds, and 21 were Assassin builds. That gives her a 41.17% win rate as Tankali and a 35.71% win rate as an Assassin. Without digging any deeper into it, it seems as though Akali in general sucks in pro level play no matter how you build her.

To compare it to everyone else, I've rounded up some none-pro statistics from Champion.gg, which claims to analyze ranked Platinum + matches. Tankali is sitting below 50% at a 49.8% win rate, so well within variance. Rammus and Sion top are both at over 53%, Naut, Malphite and Poppy are all over 52%, Shen and Volibear are hanging in there at over 51% too. It doesn't seem that she's outperforming actual tanks top lane at all.

Comparing her to damage dealing top laners, Kayle is way ahead of her at 54.26%. Quinn and Panth are both over 52%, Graves, Tryn and Aatrox are over 51%. It doesn't look at all as if she's performing too well here either.

Where it gets interesting is when you look at Tankali's match up statistics. Take these with a grain of salt some of them have quite small sample sizes. Despite what Solorenektononly said in his video, Tankali seems to have very unfavourable matchups against both Pantheon and Quinn. She also does badly against Nauti, Poppy and Shen.
She does well against Sion, Rammus and Graves however, but that alone doesn't seem to be enough to totally redeem her. The general trend here is that she only performs well against laners who are worse than her in extended melee combat post level 6.

From the sources I looked at, proper tanks are having far more success top lane than Tankali is, though she does edge out some of the top laners who look to build straight damage. Unlike the proper tanks, she has nothing to offer when behind. Her lowest win rates overall are against Riven, Renekton and Trundle. The comonality with all three is that they can set Tankali behind early and end the game before she can recover. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise I hope, but it may well turn out that Akali isn't very good when behind and struggles to get back into the game. This isn't the case at all for Sion, Rammus and Company who still have ways back in even if set behind.

I also looked at Akali's mid lane performances and her win rate is lower there while she's building straight damage. I'll spare you all the details, but it was a surprise to me too, I though it would actually be higher given how fast she can snowball out of control. All of this taken together leads me to the conclusion that Tankali does indeed perform better than Assassin at Plat+ levels of play. That being said however you would probably still be just better off picking someone else at the moment because she seems to be so dependent on snowballing her lane to have a significant impact. Just because its "less bad" doesn't mean its good.

The evidence I found does support what I originally though however - That you would be better off playing someone else alltogether if you're serious about winning.

It would be cool if they went with a kind of support/juggernaut role for him - low mobility but ultra tanky, a powerful stun and heal, etc.

He and Malphite are both mountains now, so that's weird... will they be bros because of it - or do mountains have rivalries?

I am totally on board with Juggersupport (also now a thing too!) Taric.

As for him and Malphite, I imagine Taric would be the Immovable Object. Malphite is the Unstopable Force. Its best not to get involved in that one, it'll get very metaphysical very quickly.

[Sal the Shieldhog]

It would be cool if they went with a kind of support/juggernaut role for him - low mobility but ultra tanky, a powerful stun and heal, etc.

I think his armor shatter is outdated - that should be the ADC's job to build however much armor pen they need.

If he's a mountain, maybe he can command the dirt or something? It may be cool to give him either a ranged root - soil liquefaction - or something like Trundle's pillar where he can cut off enemy escape / pursuit.

Q - AoE Stun
W - Build a wall like a Victor death beam (mouse flick to define the direction/shape you want it)
E - Powerful single target heal
R - Ranged AOE root + damage

So he doesn't move fast, but he's super dangerous in close range, where he can root/stun/block people. He doesn't contribute a lot to lane trades, but he can decide when they occur with the root/block, and/or decide when they end (again with the root/block).

He and Malphite are both mountains now, so that's weird... will they be bros because of it - or do mountains have rivalries?

I am totally on board with Juggersupport (also now a thing too!) Taric.

As for him and Malphite, I imagine Taric would be the Immovable Object. Malphite is the Unstopable Force. Its best not to get involved in that one, it'll get very metaphysical very quickly.

He's definitely the Aspect of the Mountain, but I don't think he's the mountain, if that makes sense. In the new lore, there's not just one tribe (well, there were two, I guess), there's many, many more. But there's one thing that binds them all together, and that's the mountain itself. I think Taric is more along that route, the manifestation of the heart of Targon itself, it's will. The new lore says that Aspects rarely appear so many at a time - Leona and Diana are diametric opposites, and neither can really work together. Pantheon either - at this point, he's little more than a mindless manifestation of War itself. They need something to bind them together, to face the Void that threatens them (and, mayhaps, their wayward space dragon).

Taric is that binding. His gems are iconic, and I don't think moving away from them, thematically and visually, would be a good idea. IMO, gems are still a big part of his kit, he's not so much the mountain as he is it's heart, what it truly means to be Targonian. He brings and melds the Aspects together as a cohesive force, something that can work together against whatever they were created for.

As another note, the dev who was re-working him said that his ult has the potential to be the biggest game changer, so I'm excited to see what it is. IMO, his kit still revolves around gems, but perhaps not in the way we're used to. I think he'll still have his heal and stun (although that'll definitely be a skillshot), but I foresee his passive, W, and the prior-mentioned ult being changed massively.

[Ergar]

The evidence I found does support what I originally though however - That you would be better off playing someone else alltogether if you're serious about winning.

If want to think you know better than the high level people, and the koreans where the build originated from then go for it bud. Trying to reason with you seems to be out of the question so far.

E: and yes, no one here as ever said that she is the best champion atm, we've been saying why she is good, and even picked at all.

[StrawberryZebra]

As much as I hate having to quote myself...

All of this taken together leads me to the conclusion that Tankali does indeed perform better than Assassin at Plat+ levels of play.

I'm not really sure how much clearer I can put it. She's not in a very good spot at the moment, even the pro's don't win often with her, but Tankali IS her best build. Perhaps I need to tatoo the words "I was wrong about Tankali" on my backside and post the picture? I'm sure everyone would appreciate a good laugh.

Statistically speaking however, you are better off picking someone else if you want to win games. Jungle Shyv and mid lane Quinn specifically according to Champion.gg. I realise there are a huge amount of variables unaccounted for in that, but they do win games at a higher rate than other champions at the moment. If you want to win top you should be looking at Kayle, Sion and Rammus. Abuse them while you can for some Freelo!

[Noxina]

Yeah, what we're simply saying is than tank akali is better that AP akali as for now. Of course there are a ton better choices.