Shak3y's corner: to the untrained eye...

[quote=Shak3y][b]To the untrained eye[/b], these patch notes look like another set of give and take to the champions that rule the league. Another vayne nerf. Another change to the somewhat obsecure hextech revolver, and a buff to fiddlesitcks. But look closer. See it yet? For what might appear to be another normal patch has a much darker and more dangerous implication to our current meta-game. My friends, i talk about the general fixes. These small changes around the fields of justice that effect our game in ways we may not even notice. So, the key changes here seem to be the change of the lifesteal and spell vamp mechanic. No longer shielded by morgana or hexdrinker. These life steal mechanics now work untill you grey (gray for you americanos) screen out. This change is also seems to be affected by spirit visage. Sustainability seems to be the new meta ladies and gents, and i'm not wrong. For any champ these days not to have some form of health regen, life steal, spell vamp or even a soraka on toe are just dead in the water. This creates exponentially epic effects for champions such as vlad and warwick. Not to mention what happened when i tried it on my akali build. When you think about this it should scare you. It scares me! Alas, not all is lost. If we take a look at experience and gold distribution we can see that Riot are making games closer and more enjoyable. These changes come in the form of what i like to think of as a ballancing act. What used to happen was that a team would get 10 kills infront and just dominate. Even if their team play sucked they would still manage to pull thorough. Now, riot has nerfed this early game ethos of "were ahead by x kills, so we win." turning their attention to a more team based. Late game surge. The facts being that experience for a kill has been put on our imaginary see-saw. If a team gets too far ahead, they start to outlevel the opposition. The exp kill/ lvl change has stuck a nail through our ballancing board to make it rigid. If you kill higer levels, you gain more experience. if you kill lower levels, you gain less. This means that its less likely one team will be level 17 while the other team trails at a mere level 13. Instead these changes imply that the better team will only be level 16 while the lesser team only 1-2 levels behiend at level 14. Leveling the playing field. Also gold for killing champs on a death streak has become soo small; only 15 gold. Pfft. Minions are worth more gold. This makes your team "feeder" less of a hinderance if they keep dying. So in summary, what do the comming days have instore for us? 1. A meta-game revolving around stainability and long team fights. 2. closer games that take away the indivudual factor of a player doing really well or really badly. Which changes the focus away from individuals to better team play. So, am i happy with the new changes? Yes, i am. I think riot are doing somthing clever here. MOBA games have always been on a see-saw. Once one team gains weight on the game they throw the other team right out. Riot have added some springs to our see-saw that is league of legends. Meaning that even when your team starts getting thrown off, you always know that their is a spring in the works waiting to pull you back on track and make the MOBA see-saw level again. your speculative thinker, shakey[/quote]

[quote=Canoas]Didn't they change ignite to reduce spell-vamp and lifesteal as well? If so doesn't it kind of counter the life-steal/spellvamp buff regarding shields? Also, I'm pretty sure that vlad's and WW's abilities do not have lifesteal, but instead simply heal, just like a soraka's.[/quote]

[quote=caucheka]yes ignite reduces life steal and spell vamp. and yes vlad and wws abilities heal.[/quote]

[quote=Searz]I'll have to agree to most of this. Unlike Dufftime you actually have real reasoning behind your statements. But! They also made reduced healing apply to life steal and spell vamp. They buffed it and nerfed it in the same patch. I think healing, life steal and spell vamp are like they should now. @Cau Life steal, spell vamp and heal are basically the same now, they just trigger from different things.[/quote]

[quote=theBMB]you mean you weren't building spell vamp on akali before?[/quote]

[quote=Shak3y]No i was.... im talking about spirit visage[/quote]

[quote=Searz]Also; I don't think teamfights are focused around sustain. Pushes and poke comps are, but most teamfights are currently a nuke war. A war for which team first nukes down an enemy and then proceeds to win the fight.[/quote]

[quote=Shak3y]"Sustainability seems to be the new meta ladies and gents, and i'm not wrong. For any champ these days not to have some form of health regen, life steal, spell vamp or even a soraka on toe are just dead in the water." I saying what i think will be the new meta due to these changes. Not what the old meta was. Ur right the old meta was push poke nuke. I just thought il'd write a wee article on what i think will happen over the next couple of months as the high elo game play filters down to normals. It's just my oppinion though ^^ Don't get me wrong though. I welcome the discussion/feed back. I'm thinking or writing a coupld of articles a month. So lemme know what you would like to see change in terms of format or content.[/quote]

[quote=Miraisen]Funny you talk about that, I'm currently testing a few builds with Spirit Visage on Akali. Very interesting post though. Are you planning to write regular articles?[/quote]

[quote=theBMB]I don't really think spirit visage is necessary on her unless you're building her tanky, with a hextech revolver and her passive, Akali has 30% spell vamp, and since she's basically a nuke character with low cooldowns, she can heal very quickly[/quote]