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Do you wanna go off-meta? [Quick & Dirty Framework]

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3 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author DutchWolf114

Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (3) More Guides

Choose Champion Build:

Rawrrrrr
Now you see me....
Slow Queen
Panzer Leader
Charm their HP off
Best ADC
This Is The Way

Runes:

Sorcery

Summon Aery

Manaflow Band

Celerity

Waterwalking

Domination

Zombie Ward

Ingenious Hunter

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

1 2

Basic

Flash

Ignite

Items

True Support(TM) Nidalee

Ability Order

Nidalee Passive Ability

Champion Build Guide

NOTICE: ALL MY GUIDES WILL NOT RECEIVE UPDATES UNTILL FURTHER NOTICE.

At time of writing (patch 11.6 release) the game is so horribly broken and unbalanced there is no point in writing (or reading) a guide, especially for an off-meta pick. Games are a coinflip right now (at least in silver/gold elo), skill does not matter as roughly 8 out of 10 games are decided by "who has the most broken champs". Of the remaining 2 games, at most 1 is decided by the best player in the match....and the other(s) are decided by the worst feeder. Maybe some sense will return to Rito and I'll get to update these sometime, untill then so long...

ToC

Hello & Welcome

first things first

Hi There!

Welcome to the hub for what has become my quick & dirty off-meta (and occasionally ) series. Back in '17 in wrote my first guide on support, which since has turned into a series of guides. This framework is meant as a place to tie it all together, your one-stop-shop for off-meta builds :)

I don't want this to just be a list of my own guides (I'm not that vain you guys, seriously), so we're also going to use this to have a bit of a discussion about what constitutes an off-meta pick. A discussion I hope we can keep going in the comment section. That's the next chapter. Chapter 3 contains an overview of my guides, their current status, upcoming guides and a short discussion on the format of these guides. Up next is a selection of awesome guides you should really check out for various reasons. There's also a (mostly outdated) list of all off-meta guides I could find at the very end.

-DutchWolf

The Off-Meta

What follows is a more or less in-depth discussion of what constitutes going off-meta. First we’ll discuss the concept the meta, which we need to establish what is the ”off-meta”. After that we’ll go through some different types of off-meta playstyle, followed by a short discussion of the relation between off-meta and trolling. Before we start out I want to point out that the initial release of this chapter is not just the result of my own intellect/insanity, but was written based on input from several other players. Therefor I want to say thanks to Silverman43, DobbieTheElf, Orrvaa, Laati, Kurotsu and Mind the Gap for sharing their thoughts on the subject. I hope that we, as a community, can keep developing this chapter together so please do comment and share your thoughts.

disclaimer

The Meta
Discussing “off-meta” is impossible without discussing “the meta” first, a term every League player knows and uses…but many would struggle to define. Meta is shortened from “metagaming”, meaning:

“...is any approach to a game that transcends or operates outside of the prescribed rules of the game; uses external factors to affect the game; or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game.” – Wiki

This is still a very broad definition, for the particular usage we are talking about we have to narrow it down a bit. When talking about “the meta” most League players refer to “what’s normal right now”. In the most basic sense you could say that “ADC and support go bot” is part of the current meta (and has been for quite a while). These are the unspoken “rules” of the game. Rito never defined which champ should go where and as far as the game is concerned you are completely free to pick , go bot and build him full AP. However, you’ll be frowned upon by your fellow players and you probably won’t be seeing it being played in the LCS. The meta is thus what the average players have decided to be “good” picks, builds and strategies. This can be based on buffs, nerfs and what people see pro-players or streamers do. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the flavour-of-the-month OP pick or strategy (for instance, + bot was stupidly OP at one point, but that didn’t mean other bot-picks were off-meta). A large part of the meta is also “what people are used to”. For example there is no real reason why you wouldn’t play as an ADC in low-ELO, but he gets picked so much that a botlane Graves will probably raise some eyebrows at this point. Like I said before, parts of the meta are also copied from what people see in the LCS or on streams. This makes sense, as the teams in the competitive scene spend good money on analysts who (in part) mathematically decide what the optimum strategy, build, team comp, etcetera is on the current patch. It can be misleading as well however, since coordinated 5v5 strategies are largely un-applicable to solo/duo as 5 randoms simply can’t pull off the same plays as 5 pro-players who all have direct-comms and train together for hours and hours on end.

For those interested, you can find a comprehensivewrite-up of the early meta of League (season 1-2) here.

The Off-Meta
Now that we (kind of) understand what “the meta” means, it would be very tempting to just define “the off-meta” as “anything that is not considered meta”. Technically that would be mostly correct as well. That is a surface-level analysis however, and there are some intricacies so let’s go a bit deeper. First of all, we could say that a champ that is rarely seen in the current meta -i.e. has a terrible pick rate- is also an “off-meta” pick. For instance, is barely played at the time of writing (presumably because assassins and bruisers would just dunk on him). Yet, most people wouldn’t consider it to be off-meta when you play Sol mid with his regular build. That is just considered a weak pick. The meta does shift over time, so something that is meta now might not be a few months down the road. used to be a midlaner for example, that got picked as a semi-meta every now and then. Right now, he is exclusively seen in the support role. There are other picks as well, like top for instance, that are not the norm but are generally accepted as viable picks and are thus seen as a meta-pick.

To determine if something constitutes is actually off-meta we can look at 3 variables: position, role, and build. Position refers to the lane the champ is played during laning phase (i.e. top/mid/jungle/etc). The role describes the function the champ fulfills in the teamcomp, for instance ADC, APC, off-tank, healer support, etc. Finally the build is…well the build. Each of these can make a particular pick and playstyle off-meta in its own right. For instance, when the meta prescribes the midlaner is an assassin or mage and you bring a mid this can be off-meta even if you play him as a regular ADC. When it comes to role, you can think of playing off-tank while every other Ekko will go full AP. This is also related to the build, however in this case the primary shift is the role (tank vs assassin) and the build is what logically follows. A better example of a build-based off-meta strategy would be going full-crit instead of his regular blue-build. These are simple, single variable examples. Things get interesting when we start to muck about with more than just one thing. Before we go on, I want to point out one other type of off-meta: off-meta team strategy. Especially in high-ELO and competitive play, there are “normal’ strategies for winning the game. Diverting from these to develop new ways of succeeding or countering meta-strategies can also be considered off-meta. That being said, this goes well beyond the scope of this discussion and will therefor be ignored from now on.

Flavours of(f) meta
Let’s go through the various types and gradations of off-meta. First up we’ve got the very basic (s)off(t)-meta pick where you just play a champion in a different position but you pretty much do what you’d normally do otherwise. Think APC bot, ADC top, but also things like full-AP “support”. These are technically off-meta, we’re not exactly breaking new grounds here (these are also more or less accepted by other players). Another soft form of off-meta is the “gg report Rito” broken arse build that completely goes against what you’d normally do. bot was a thing for a while because of something Riot bucked up. Again, that’s not really subverting the meta or anything, it’s probably better to look at this like a temporary meta (like everyone running Thunderlord’s decree at one point or being hot at the time of writing).

It gets a lot more interesting when you actually start to go against the intended purpose of the champ. My guide describes a playstyle and build that goes against LB’s kit and designed purpose (LeBlanc being designed to pop squishy targets in <1 second). We’re hitting all three of the variables here, playing here in a different position (bot), as a different role (allround support), with a build to match (utility/AP based as opposed to full-AP). There are different grades of this, as you could class my build in the same category. However, Nid Sup stays a lot closer to the regular usage of her kit than LB does. Part of what makes these picks work is that they are semi-viable and your opponent will be confused af. This actually makes it easier to win sometimes, which is one reason why you would go off-meta.

It really gets borderline-trolling is when we really actively go against the champion’s main scalings to play another role. ADC , AP , Crittlesticks and ADC spring to mind. The more viable of these usually have at least something that sort of allows them to succeed (Ahri’s mobility for instance). Others are just entirely based on out-skilling your opponent and really should not work at all (*coughADCcough*). The main reason people play this is that it is fun. League is a videogame after all, fun is what we are here for. Besides that, some of these can be really intense to play as you will be putting your skills to the ultimate test: no scalings, no abilities to really fall-back on, just you and your wits.

Some might have noticed I use a lot of examples, that’s because that’s my particular field of expertise. You can probably think of other lane equivalents yourself.

Report that troll!
On the subject of trolling. There is a bloody fine line between “going off-meta” and “trolling”. The trolling we are referring to here is subtly different from “regular” trolling on forums, social media etc. Video game trolling can be defined as:

“…who deliberately provocative to other gamers with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument who gains entertainment to toy others emotions without the victim's knowledge. The Gamer Troll want their victims of not noticing they're having fun to make you rage or cry in the process of doing it in the first place. They love the feeling to dominate the other players' emotions to feel like a champ. Most of these trolls are very unskilled at most or current game he/she is playing at the time. Another reason a Gamer Troll will do this to other players' is when they cannot win the game or did try their best and they will not have any game sportsmanship of regardless the game match is for fun or competitive gameplay.” – UD.

One thing to observe here is that trolling can applied to either your team or the enemy. In the latter case you aren’t actually trying to make your team lose, but you try to make the other team less effective by playing on their emotions (examples include spamming emotes/mastery tokens, trash-talking in allchat, etc.). This form of trolling is less relevant for us here since the people that classify off-meta picks as “trolling” are usually on our team. The trolling we are concerned with here is more closely tied to intentional feeding and griefing:

“Purposefully…or otherwise sabotaging your teammates in an online game.” – UD.

This is closer to the definition that most people would give for trolling in League: purposefully ruining other players experience and/or LP. #notall, but there are a lot of players out there that will just assume an off-meta picks means they’re about to lose. These are probably the same guys that call losing lane “intentional feeding”, regardless of intent. So, generally speaking, going off-meta should not be regarded as trolling unless you intentional try to ruin your team’s match. There are some case where an off-meta build will be trolling regardless of what you do, for example full-AP has to be a troll, since he has exactly 0 AP scalings making your entire build completely useless.

Quick & Dirty Guides

These are the current "Quick & Dirty X" guides. Originally published in 2017, I've been wholly unable to update them since 2019. Currently I'm finding the time to slowely get them all back to some form of up-to-date-ish, hoping to be fully back up to date by christmas.

note: flavour-of-the-month

Season 11 (patch 11.3)

A Good bArDC
Champ:
Role:

ADC: Ahri Damage Carry
Champ:
Role:

Here Comes the Cavalry!
Champ:
Role:

All About dat Ashe
Champ:
Role:

I Know What I'm Doing
Champ:
Role:

I Swear I'm Not Trolling!
Champ:
Role:

Patch 10.22

Pounce on dat Ashe!
Champ:
Role:

Horribly Outdated

None!

About Quick & Dirty

"adjective - expedient and effective but not without flaws or unwanted side effects"
-Mer. Webster Dictionary

The whole "quick and dirty" is meant to signify that my guides (barely) cover the very basics of what you need to know in order to play that particular champ in that particular role. They are quick write-ups (I usually spend <1 to 2 weeks on a guide) and I assume the reader A) knows how to play the role in general and B) is clever enough to figure a lot of stuff out on his own. For example, I'm not going to tell my audience of presumed ADC mains that is a solid keystone for ADC's, nor am I going to explain to a bunch of mains how to ward or when to build . I'm also not going to go into extreme detail about the champ's kit, or the pro's and con's, etc. There are multiple reasons for all this.

First (and foremost) I am lazy, sue me. Okay, I'm kidding...reason #2 is actually the primary reason: experience in the role --not the champ, the role-- is probably the most important factor in how well my off-meta builds will go for you. My off-meta guides almost invariably make you do things the champ's kit was not designed for at all. So if you are going to try this, while you are still struggling with the fundamentals of the role, it will be a lot harder, you'll have less successful games and you generally will have less fun. Think of it like trying to learn how to do a wheelie while you are still having trouble keeping the bike balanced in the first place. Simple example: part of what makes (and ) support work is that you can leverage your high-mobility to dominate the map using vision control, however that only works if you know how, when and why to ward. I also want to emphasize that, with my playstyle, these builds should be versatile...i.e. you're meant to be able to do more than just one cheap party-trick, so I want to encourage some creativity and brain activity rather than just telling you guys how to do it. I'm a firm proponent of good Old Blood & Guts' maxim "Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results". Finally, I'm a bit of a perfectionist at heart, so if I don't limit myself in some way...I'd never actually release anything because I'd just keep expanding and updating it into oblivion.

Honourable Mentions

This is a selection of meta and off-meta guides that helped me out a great deal in developing as a player, writing these off-meta guides and/or are just pretty cool and therefor worth mentioning:

The Top Bear's "I Will Guide You" is not only the best Nidalee guide on the web, he is also an awesome dude that provided some valuable input for my Nida guide.

I feel obliged to mention the first guide I ever read, which is Jhoijhoi's "Ashes to Ashes". Still the benchmark in fabolous looking guides and a very solid ADC Ashe one at that.

Released around the same time as mine, and with pretty much equal views since, Ningen's "Fake Support LeBlanc" was the yin to my True Support LB's yang. Was an excellent full AP LB sup guide, but sadly no longer available..

"The other" AD Bard guide was way better than mine (but outdated as well now).

My first main was Janna and Jovy's the Guardian helped me out a great deal way back when.

obligatory JANNA video

I can't not mention Baekstra's old LB guide, which used to be the best LB guide. Do spam his inbox for him to update it again.

There are many other great guides I would love to mention but are either outdated or simply deleted and/or lost in the mists of the web.

Closing Statements

If you have any ideas about off-meta building, any guides you'd like to see, or general questions about the content of this framework, please leave a comment. Please vote if you enjoyed reading this. I hope you share my vision of this being not a single-read guide, rather a resource and discussion forum, so I hope you'll be back sometime :) Before I sign-off there two more things. I have noticed there are some regular readers that commented on more than one of my guides. Honestly, when I wrote the first guide fully expected it to bomb rather than get thousands of views....let alone turn into a series with regular readers. You know who you are: thanks guys, you are awesome.

And as always: thanks for reading.
-DutchWolf

Other Off-Meta Guides

Note: this list was last updated sometime in 2019, some might still be around, others might be 404'd by now. Not gonna bother checking it.

Index

TOP JUNGLE MID BOT SUPPORT

disclaimer

about this list (read before commenting)