Vynertje wrote:
That aside though, good use of active support items will win you a close game while AP will only snowball a won game. If you're snowballing as Janna, you're better off getting a Soulstealer IMO anyway due to cost efficiency. In my experience I find it hard to finish big AP items in very low-kill games and only able to get some in long, drawn out games.
Thank-you for your responses, Vynertje. I think the above quote was the most important thing you said. Personally, I find the "other high ELO guys I see don't do it" argument unconvincing. First, Mobafire hosts a Janna guide written by a Cloud9 member who advocates for an AP build. Second, I am often surprised by how much "group think" occurs in the LOL community.
Zilean is a terrible character that should never be played in competitive games -- until he is. Lulu should only be played support until she isn't, etc. I'm often surprised by the lack of number crunching that often goes into even high ELO builds and guides -- coming from a World of Warcraft mindset where dps and hps are calculated to six decimals. I often see pure mages like Ziggs and Zyra even in high ELO games create an early Rabadon's Deathcap, for example, when actually the much cheaper Void Staff would have done more damage even against enemies who hadn't built any magic resist items. I also see a lot of LOL players, even high ELO ones, who seem unwilling to change their builds after a patch that completely changes how certain characters should be built. In summary, numbers and *reasons* convince me, not a claim to what everybody else does. Anybody can watch the LCS or look at LOLPro and see how the pros build their characters. What I want to know is *why*.That's where I think your above statement comes in. It makes a lot of sense to say that in high ELO games where one is likely to have few kills or assists as a support and are likely to have little if any CS, that you need to have a build that's strong on the cheap. An AP build might be strong not just for damage but in the way it strengthens shields, heals, and some CC -- but getting that AP build to the point where it's strong might take so long or cost so much that the game might be over before you're at the point where the AP build becomes stronger than a build based on flat utility items. For example,
Mikael's Blessing and Locket of the Iron Solari are at full power the moment they are built whereas an AP item might depend on other multiplier items like Rabadon's Deathcap and Void Staff to really have its full effect.Also, in high ELO games, you're likely to have more coordination and cooperation, so for example you might be able to expect your party to group close enough to allow you to shield them all with
Locket of the Iron Solari before engaging whereas in a low ELO game, you might be lucky to be able to hit two allies -- and that difference could skew a lot of calculations.So, thank-you again for the responses. I would love it if you could discuss more in-depth about the reasons you choose certain items over others, if you have concrete numbers or situational strategies in mind. I am definitely looking forward to your warding video. Your post above about warding showed a lot of thoughtful analysis and I've already changed my warding patterns to get more wards forward into the enemy jungle because of it.
I do have another specific question. What kind of boots do your prefer on Janna and why? The choices I'm wrestling with are:
Mobility Boots. Pro: Fastest boots out of combat, making it easier to zoom around the map warding and getting back to lane. Con: Slowest boots while in combat. Plus, even out of combat, you will quickly hit the diminishing returns limit where any movement speed increase gets halved -- decreasing the effective gain that you get from all those juicy Janna speed bonuses.
Boots of Swiftness. Pro: Fastest boots in combat, letting you zoom around even while you're in combat. Con: Not as fast as Mobility Boots out of combat.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity. Pro: Gives 15% CDR, giving you more flexibility to not have to build as much CDR from items or runes. Con: Slower out of combat than Mobility Boots and slower in and out of combat than Boots of Swiftness.
Mercury's Treads. Pro: MR and tenacity. Reducing the length of stuns and slows makes it more likely that you can get away even if the enemy catches you with some cc. Con: Slower out of combat than Mobility Boots and slower in and out of combat than Boots of Swiftness.
Also, for the enchantment bonus, do you like Alacrity or Captain?
Janna and why? The choices I'm wrestling with are: Mobility Boots. Pro: Fastest boots out of combat, making it easier to zoom around the map warding and getting back to lane. Con: Slowest boots while in combat. Plus, even out of combat, you will quickly hit the diminishing returns limit where any movement speed increase gets halved -- decreasing the effective gain that you get from all those juicy Janna speed bonuses. Boots of Swiftness. Pro: Fastest boots in combat, letting you zoom around even while you're in combat. Con: Not as fast as Mobility Boots out of combat. Ionian Boots of Lucidity. Pro: Gives 15% CDR, giving you more flexibility to not have to build as much CDR from items or runes. Con: Slower out of combat than Mobility Boots and slower in and out of combat than Boots of Swiftness. Mercury's Treads. Pro: MR and tenacity. Reducing the length of stuns and slows makes it more likely that you can get away even if the enemy catches you with some cc. Con: Slower out of combat than Mobility Boots and slower in and out of combat than Boots of Swiftness.Also, for the enchantment bonus, do you like Alacrity or Captain?
Quoted:
Utopus wrote:
You're totally right. However, you're talking about a very small window of opportunity between Rolling Thunder's active, and the opposing support's disengage.
Additionally, you are right in that you can get a kill and snowball the lane, but if something doesn't work out, you don't provide as much reliable utility to that of a Leona, who has a much easier time getting in your opponent's face, and locking them down.
If you aren't successful in cheesing your opponents, it seems almost unavoidable to get poked down.
You're totally right. However, you're talking about a very small window of opportunity between Rolling Thunder's active, and the opposing support's disengage.
Additionally, you are right in that you can get a kill and snowball the lane, but if something doesn't work out, you don't provide as much reliable utility to that of a Leona, who has a much easier time getting in your opponent's face, and locking them down.
If you aren't successful in cheesing your opponents, it seems almost unavoidable to get poked down.
Really though,
Volibear support is never meant to be stronger than say Thresh/ Janna and so on. But he gives you some things that, while they are cheesy things, can really snowball. He has a lot of tankiness through his passive while at the same time giving more presence than an Alistar early on, simply because you're actually not only bringing the cc but also some damage. With the right brush control Volibear is a lot harder to avoid. He also brings a stronger laning phase than Leona and Alistar and instead of getting an aoe stun//massive stat modifier he gets more damage which can lead to an even bigger lead if you can push the advantage. Yes he lacks a lot of things, but instead he gives you something else. It's very straight forward but if you succeed it's not that bad.Quoted:
Mooninites wrote:
I cannot think of a scenario where support volibear would be better than a leona, braum, alistar, etc.
I mean what does he do better than any of those champions?
I cannot think of a scenario where support volibear would be better than a leona, braum, alistar, etc.
I mean what does he do better than any of those champions?
He does one thing better, and that is that he actually gives more lane presence pre-6. He has a stronger early game and if he snowballs he will most likely run you over. Obviously, if you fail you become borderline useless compared to any other support. But, you don't play
Volibear unless you are confident in that you can win lane and snowball heavily.
Thanks to The_Nameless_Bard for the sig!
MungoGeri wrote:
Mobility Boots. Pro: Fastest boots out of combat, making it easier to zoom around the map warding and getting back to lane. Con: Slowest boots while in combat. Plus, even out of combat, you will quickly hit the diminishing returns limit where any movement speed increase gets halved -- decreasing the effective gain that you get from all those juicy Janna speed bonuses.A Pro you forgot: damn cheap boots.
MungoGeri wrote:
Spoiler: Click to viewLemonnation is the only support out there who goes balls-to-the-walls AP, and he only does so in solo queue. I checked probuilds.net before making that statement: http://www.probuilds.net/champions/Janna - you can see some AP being built in games but mostly supportive (in fact: mejais is the only common AP item which proves my point that there is "way less of a divide"). To talk a little bit more about his guide: he also advocates gp10 seals while he doesn't seem to use them in his real games at all. Hence I wouldn't take this to heart at all.
I already mentioned a couple of reasons why I always go for the supportive path rather than ap, I'll quote them:
Quoted:
"Your goal as a support is to give your team optimal circumstances to perform well and that also means you're going to get more overall damage as a team if you just build stuff to make your team survive, rather than building damage yourself. "
So even though some supports have some scaling with AP, that scaling is usually so minor that it is better to just build supportive items and make sure your team stays alive as long as possible. If your ADC dies, you're not going to clean up all by yourself regardless, while your ADC can do so if you keep him alive.
To add a little bit more context: Janna has good scaling IF you can get a big moonsoon off. However, I don't really like to put all my gold into one good ultimate because you'll regularly be forced to use it only for disengage meaning you can't just stand still and heal.
Quoted:
Correct, but when you're purely looking to aid your team 'real' support items are overall more effective, especially when you're playing close games where good use of Mikael's Crucible can turn games.
You can opt to get some AP after finishing your core, which is something I do when I'm ahead too but you can't just go full AP-ish.
Quoted:
That aside though, good use of active support items will win you a close game while AP will only snowball a won game. If you're snowballing as Janna, you're better off getting a Soulstealer IMO anyway due to cost efficiency. In my experience I find it hard to finish big AP items in very low-kill games and only able to get some in long, drawn out games.
To cover a very specific parts of your comment:
MungoGeri wrote:
Also, in high ELO games, you're likely to have more coordination and cooperation, so for example you might be able to expect your party to group close enough to allow you to shield them all with
Locket of the Iron Solari before engaging whereas in a low ELO game, you might be lucky to be able to hit two allies -- and that difference could skew a lot of calculations.This also works the other way when you're looking at how much you can heal from your ultimate.
MungoGeri wrote:
for example, Mikael's Crucible and Locket of the Iron Solari are at full power the moment they are built whereas an AP item might depend on other multiplier items like Rabadon's Deathcap and Void Staff to really have its full effect.
Correct, that's another reason I don't advocate full AP builds. You can go for items like
Morellonomicon because it offers more than just raw ap (CDR!) or Mejais because it's very cheap and can be super cost efficient but deathcap indeed needs other multipliers.However, one VERY important note I already made but want to address again:
Janna and Lulu are the only champions that can really get away going deep into an ap build due to their skillset (even though I dislike it regardless). They aren't as squishy and immobile as Nami and Sona, who really need some defense in order to survive. Sona and Nami also have significantly worse AP scalings overall.MungoGeri wrote:
second part of your questionFor any other support than
Janna I'd go Mobility Boots for the movement speed and the super low price. Janna is a little bit different because she already has a lot of bonus movement speed so she can easily outrun any other support with other boots than mobis. That's why I personally find mobi boots overkill.So, a good thing to do is just to buy
Boots and let these rest until you finish a few core items. Otherwise I usually get Ionian Boots of Lucidity if I'm not really expecting to get past that 40% cap any time soon.Mercs and Swiftness are rather bad because of the high price and giving mediocre stats. As a support slow reduction/tenacity are rather mediocre and if you follow a standard support build you'll have a healthy amount of mr in your build anyway.
So if I am going to hit 40% CDR but do want to get tier 2 boots, go mobis regardless.
Regarding enchantments: I pretty much always go homeguards so I can refill my sightstone quickly and move around the map faster to support whatever lane needs the support (as mentioned, I place A LOT of wards so I often run out of stacks). I don't really like either of the other enchantments for supports as they're expensive and giving little to no supportive value.
utopus wrote:
You're totally right. However, you're talking about a very small window of opportunity between
Thundering Smash's active, and the opposing support's disengage.Additionally, you are right in that you can get a kill and snowball the lane, but if something doesn't work out, you don't provide as much reliable utility to that of a
Leona, who has a much easier time getting in your opponent's face, and locking them down.If you aren't successful in cheesing your opponents, it seems almost unavoidable to get poked down.
That's what I'm trying to say too, and if they use Exhoust on you they'll even get a kill, but try it and show us how it went :))
MungoGeri wrote:
I'm often surprised by the lack of number crunching that often goes into even high ELO builds and guides -- coming from a World of Warcraft mindset where dps and hps are calculated to six decimals.
This!
Drives me nuts as well. Very hard to find a good detail specific discussions.
I'm getting a lot out of here and it is very helpful!
Based on this discussion I found myself actually making an educated decision on the load screen as to what starting item to use. If the match up looked like we would be aggressive I took the Frost Queen. If it looked to be a bad match up for us I went Coin. One small step in the right direction I think.
Good stuff on boots! Thanks!
Yes, I feel your ward pain... I never had enough wards!!! 3 and 2 max on the map feels like way too little and I am always out and having to go refill!
Just one thing I like to add is that looking at league purely through a numbers' perspective is just flat out terrible because there are just too many factors to regard. That is why most people just don't bother with it at all. Number crunching overall is a bad thing in league if you ask me, while it is obviously a good thing in WoW.
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I mean what does he do better than any of those champions?
Aside from doing a million damage and being pretty cheese, no.