To quote Garth "We fear change."

I've been playing since the middle of Season 2 and this Pre-Season has been the most disorienting one that I've experienced.

What do I buy? How to prioritize the new objectives? What Masteries work? Who to play? What happened to some of my standby champions? Which lane am I going to? Why is that "ADC" mid? Is all physical damage that bad if the games are going to end before the opposing team can itemize against you? WTF is up with towers being like tissue paper?

I could go on, but I'm sure a lot of you have had similar feelings and flogging them isn't going to accomplish much.

The changes are here. There will be more to come. And probably more after that.

I am going to stay out of ranked until things are a little less chaotic. That leaves up Normals or Draft Normals.

What I have been doing is trying out several different characters and tweaking masteries and build paths to get an idea of what works.

E.g. Master Yi has pretty good sustain and good carry potential. I've learned little things like not to start off a gank with Alpha Strike. You use it to follow after they Flash, jump, dash, run, or Ghost away.

I've also been practicing my lane ganking, by noting the position of minions and then working to sneak into lane bushes so I can hopefully open up a can of nasty surprise on the enemy laners.

I've also learned that some teams expect Master Yi to solo carry games from Level 1 onward. Yeah, sorry folks, it doesn't work like that.

Tryndamere has been another fun one. The heal he gets from Warlord's Bloodlust makes him a very viable jungler and a pain in the arse to deal with in general.

I've monkeyed around with a couple of build paths for him and plan on trying a few more.

1v1
Skirmisher's Sabre + Enchantment: Devourer
Mercury's Treads or Berserker's Greaves
Statikk Shiv
Infinity Edge
Bloodthirster ...really also want to try Guinsoo's Rageblade here
take your pick on the 6th item


Splitpush

Skirmisher's Sabre + Enchantment: Devourer
Mercury's Treads or Berserker's Greaves
Statikk Shiv
Infinity Edge
Ravenous Hydra could switch the last two if you need to go splitpush mode earlier

I've also tried some Aatrox but I find him to be underwhelming compared to the other two champions. They do what he does but better on average.

If I could make some changes to Aatrox they would be along the lines of reducing the cool down on Dark Flight and Blades of Torment so he could actually poke a little and be a knock up threat more often than not.

I would also like Dark Flight to be modified such that targets that are in the AoE but not at the epicenter would get slowed to make it have some return even if you don't aim it perfectly.

I would also like to see Riot add a wing buffet like effect that occurred after your passive pops and you are about to revive that would knock back targets that are waiting around to kill you to give you a little room to maneuver. Ranged champions could still hang around and take pot shots at you so there is still obvious counter play.

Maybe also have it do a token amount of damage and/or fill his Blood Well at least a small amount for each target buffetted to give him some attack speed back.

Take away.

There are a lot of changes this Pre-Season. You can ride it out and play other games. Or you can look at it like an opportunity to experiment with the new changes and see what works. I for one get quite a bit of satisfaction out of figuring out things like the jungle route that leaves you healthy enough to gank or a skill order that lets you clear just a little bit faster or in the case of laning last hit all the minions when you are stuck under your tower or to maximize your damage during a trade.

Like did you know that if you have a pink ward out and you want to know which ward that will remove on the map you can just hover over another pink ward in your inventory and it will show the one that will be removed as a red X on the mini-map? A little thing, but still useful.

Or for the sneaky Draven players you can force out skill shots like a Blitz hook by deliberately positioning so that your axe catch circle will put you in a place where you can be grabbed. Sounds like a terrible idea doesn't it? Until you add in using the S key to bring your character to a halt just before you get to the axe catching circle. Takes some courage but with that Blitzcrank Rocket Grab or Morgana Dark Binding down you can choose that window to go ham on the enemy laners which is kind of what Draven is good at.