I notice you keep praising Janna over and over again but you seem to have overlooked the fact that she's never a safe blind pick. Lulu, Karma, Sona, Nami are all good picks into her, they all have a better early game and trade more effectively. She does need nerfs, but she's far easier to deal with than a 800 hp tank at level 1 that's going to brush away any damage you do to him.
This brings me to another point, how can you say tank supports aren't strong right now? Alistar and Braum have been immovable objects ever since preseason. They're literally untouchable in lane (Braum not that much in the first few levels, if anything) and Alistar is capable of oneshotting you at level 3. Also, where's Rakan? He's made a comeback last patch, bringing back Xayah Rakan lanes. Morgana is also quite commonly picked. Soraka with E max + Grail rush is also a thing now.
Where are Varus, Ezreal, Jhin, Tristana? MF is by no means strong all of a sudden, nor is she popular. Jinx is fine, though she's pretty mathcup-dependent like Trist.
I strongly disagree. Janna's can play aggressive of course by spaming W in lane, but they can also play super passive and a deny playstyle by disengaging/peeling with Howling Gale and Monsoon.
Her trading is also very good due to Eye of the Storm not only being a strong shield that can negate damage from champions similar to her, but also grants her ADC additional AD! While Lulu, Nami, Sona, and Karma could hold their own vs A Janna actually winning lane and playing around her kit is another story entirely.
Regarding Tank Supports...
The nerfs to Aftershock have been noticeable on champions such as Alistar, Rakan, and Leona. In my opinion all in supports, for the most part are not strong at the moment. I think tank support such as Braum and Taric who do not all in, but rather play a more bodyguard play-style are much more effective.
Also since AP items have been buffed in recent patches, this indirectly makes Ranged supports stronger. That doesn't even include the direct buff ranged supports have been getting.
Morgana is a great blind pick and is overall a well balanced champion. Soraka however is fairly weak at the moment due to the passive on Morellonomicon and very cheap counter item of Executioner's Calling that can legit be bought by the first back. Put simply, too many champions can get the grievous wounds passive, and that makes Soraka too easy to counter, when we look past the champions and at the builds of both ADCs and mage supports.
Regarding ADCs....
- Varus is a consistent A-B tier pick. He fits best in metas that are won in team fights rather than in lane. I think the meta fits the latter and not the former.
- Ezreal is good, but I do not consider him extremely strong. With the ADCs I pick, I consider them to be very to extremely strong.
- Jhin could be on the list, but I limit to 2-3 champions per list. He was just a little shy.
- Tristana has poor wave control and short range make her too vulnerable to jungle ganks and enemy bot lane poke. If her numbers were strong and can carry harder she would be on my list.
- Miss Fortune is fantastic at the moment since the meta is both bot lane oriented and the winners are determined by whoever won lane phase. When it comes to who can translate their early game lead into a mid game victory, Miss Fortune is rivaled by few.
Aftershock nerfs didn't actually do much. Tank supports still dominate bot lane, and Aftershock wasn't the main reason behind their strength, anyway. Braum (who doesn't run it anyway) can force an all in at level 6 (his E is also ******ed), Rakan (who actually runs Aery now) all in has no counterplay later on in the game and he can also all in you at any point, and Alistar, who can oneshot a squishy champion at level 3. You can argue that Alistar combo is telegraphed, but it's also extremely easy to land and its zone control is huge. All in all, much more unforgiving to play against than a Janna running at you with W. You brought up Taric, but he plays differently so this doesn't apply to him.
Janna can play aggro but she shouldn't easily win lane into those assuming they're players of equal skill level. Someone who lets Janna W him on cooldown without punishing her at all can't play bot lane period. That's not to say she's not strong, but you largely overestimate her laning phase.
E max Soraka doesn't take W until level 4 or even 8 (she goes EQEW), she doesn't play like classic Soraka therefore making grievous wounds debuffs irrelevant. If you saw it played, you'd know.
Yes, the game is bot lane oriented right now, but that's because of hard scaling AD carries. MF's laning phase is nowhere nearly as strong as you make it out to be. Mediocre range + telegraphed trading patterns, doesn't do well into the S tier AD carries. Merely looking at the statistics in high elo games is enough to prove a point here.
Varus is consistently good throughout the game, one of the best laning phases AND scales really well into the game, especially with the AP build. He barely has any weak sides lol.
Trist extremely vulnerable to ganks??? She's literally the least vulnerable to ganks among all AD carries except Ezreal. She scales ridiculously hard and her lower range won't matter in all ins, which is her strongest side early on and also something she should be forcing.
I still disagree, especially on your tank point. Just look at the win rates across all elos and you will clearly see that Tank supports have been overall at or below the 50% win rate mark, while nearly all supports ( expect Karma ) have enjoyed a above 50% win rate. This is not just random, it is because tanks, in general are not strong in the early game, but are strong in the mid to late game. Since game times are rather short, tanks just do not fit as well into this meta. The only tanks I think that are doing well are Guardian users.
I still think Janna is way to strong for the reasons I stated earlier ( There is a reason she has such a high win rate for such a long time ).
I have not seen anyone do this Equinox max first Soraka build, so I can not judge it. I am however judging typical, normal Soraka players. With my judgment around that I say Soraka is weak sauce.
I strong disagree. Hard scaling AD carries are not winning games at all. This goes back to my early game meta point. The average game time at the moment is around 27 minutes, this is not even close to the late game meta that our typical hard scaling champions such as Vayne and Kog'Maw enjoy. With game times this early, early game champions such as Miss Fortune are great in this meta.
Varus is good at all stages in the game, but I would not say he has the best lane phase or scaling. I consider him to be a jack of all trades and master of one.
Tristana may have a get out of jail free card, but she lacks the poke of Ezreal and Caitlyn, who both have reliable escapes as well. In this meta, 4-5 man dives bot before 10 minutes are common and those who can avoid pushing the lane in too hard will have a clear advantage over the others. Explosive Charge just puts Tristana in a bad position, why pick her when Caitlyn and Ezreal can do the same job, but better?
You're bringing up winrates here and disregarding actual champion performance. To say that Alistar and Braum (specifically those two) are weak early on is simply not true. The Resolve tree (specifically Bone Plating + Chrysalis combo) practically makes them untouchable early with 800ish hp, at that point AD carries do next to no damage to them. Alistar particularly is overwhelming early on, I think it's pointless for me to keep repeating myself. What I'm stating is facts, if you're trying to rebuke them, you're simply refusing to accept the truth of the matter.
On Janna: she's also strong because she can actually defend against an Alistar/Rakan all in. I'm not trying to argue whether she's strong or not, it's just that you're overestimating what she can do in lane judging by what I assume is your own personal experience.
Varus doesn't have the best laning phase, no, but it's one of the better ones. He's one of the few AD carries that can handle Caitlyn in lane. Assuming you've seen what AP Varus can do, you shouldn't even consider placing him anywhere below S tier.
Vayne isn't played because of her weak laning phase. Kog'maw has been seeing more play, though, and he's a different case anyway because his build allows for a better mid game. Guinsoo rush is an early power spike compared to BF + RFC or Shiv.
So about MF, I really really don't see how you can consider her a top pick now. Her damage falls off really hard compared to all the commonly picked AD carries (which she doesn't even beat in lane contrary to what you think), she's even worse when she's behind. Also, you don't need the game to drag on for hypercarries to take over. MF with 3 items will never be able to match a crit AD carry with IE Shiv RFC. She isn't even played right now, I'm really curious what are you basing your assumptions on. Like you're pulling data here and there for win/ban rate but you should also look at her pick rate in an actually respectable elo.
Tristana isn't picked for poke, she's just a hypercarry, she becomes unstoppable once she gets going. We don't need to talk about how utterly ******ed RFC is, do we? 2-3 items is all she needs. Ezreal isn't primarily picked for poke, either, he's just a safe, reliable pick with steady scaling, he doesn't have losing matchups which certainly helps.
I disagree that it's an early game meta. You can't simply pin it down like that because of average game length, it's been like that for ages. There's no point for me to keep posting, anyway, you're firmly holding onto your opinions based on personal experience, and I simply cannot agree with that - what you've been doing here is trying to prove the game is not in fact played the way it is really played.
I'm not sure you can call my opinions based solely on personal experience when I legit gave you stats to back it up. As a matter of fact I think it is you based your opinion solely on personal experience ( nobody I have found supports your Soraka claim, most notably ).
But whatever i'm just glad you voiced your opinion :)
But what stats? Win rate and ban rate? What elo are those stats from? Give me pick rate from an actually relevant, respectable elo. Win rates don't give the full picture, ban rates are irrelevant - people ban stuff they don't want to face (counters to their onetricks, fotm/meta champions or just random picks they hate playing against etc.).
Also, for the record, they mostly play Soraka like that in Masters/Challenger, I never said it's fotm. The fact that it never caught on in the lower tiers doesn't invalidate its strength.
The point of me writing this blog is to take the patch notes and look at both the current meta and past metas and determine how bot lane is looking at the moment for a general audience.
This blog is also meant to appeal to the general league player base, meaning people around silver-plat elo. Win rates and ban rates do not give a full picture sure, but it hints at something deeper about the champion ( Yasuo, for example has had such a high ban rate due to his overloaded kit and his users seemingly being feast or famine. Kai'Sa is a good example of a numbers problem where her raw damage and ratios are simply too damn good).
Also despite what the league sub reddit may tell you, anything past bronze is a relevant elo and anything past gold is a respectable elo . Most of the player base is silver to low gold. Once you get past gold the player base drops drastically to less than 5% of the player base. I do not know about you, but being statistically better than 95% of your peers is rather damn respectable in my opinion.
And i'm not sure why you are so obsessed with Soraka, but a look at the most played/highest win rate champions for supports in that elo are Morgana, Nami, and Janna.
League sub-reddit? Oh come on now...
Yeah, sure, but let's be real here, lower tiers are incredibly slow to catch on the meta, typically lagging a few patches behind. The knowledge and understanding of the game there is limited, champion picks don't matter nearly as much, any pick would work there. That's not to say they're good picks, however, but you can make them work. Hell, you can get pretty 'high' (relative to most of the playerbase) without knowing jack**** about the game. What I'm trying to say here is, what's 'good' (or what works, rather) in those tiers doesn't matter, it's not in any way authoritative. Therefore, in my opinion, data should be gathered exclusively from high elo, and I'm sure many would agree.
Lastly, I'm not obsessed with the Soraka thing in any way, all I did was try to point out what's also good now, is that not what your blog is about?
Don't actually know who came up with it first, it's just something that pops up here and there. It's pretty oppressive early on. Also, just saw I made a typo in my earlier post, she actually goes QEEW, not EQEW, my bad.
Vayne got a big indirect nerf with the Statikk Shiv nerf. She lost all her waveclear which hits her farming pretty hard.
And facerush supports like Alistar, Rakan or Leona are really good because of Ignite buff. Their weakness is their low damage output but ignite makes up for that nicely. Aftershock cooldown increase is pretty insignificant because you don't want to all-in every 20 seconds anyways.
Oh yeah Vayne is total trash at the moment in my opinion.
I'm not saying that facerush supports are bad, but if you do not win the all in you will suffer greater in lane when matched again sustain supports such as Nami. It also does not help that Janna is too damn good at preventing these type of supports from doing anything in the first place.
With the Aftershock nerf, the cool down went up by 10 seconds. This makes it go from a nonstop tool to run over the enemy bot lane into a more situational rune.
Yeah but that's not the main reason she's bad. She can't lane against top tier picks (or anything, really).
For tank supports, it's about how hard they can zone. An AD carry like Sivir, for example, can never get close to the wave against an Alistar or he'll all in her. The only time he's weak is the first 2 levels, at level 3 he gains massive kill potential at any point his WQ is up. Leona isn't particularly strong, though, she's basically a weaker Alistar, but she can be good into Xayah Rakan lanes.
On the subject of Ignite: it's actually saddening that people still default to Exhaust on supports.
You forgot to note Leona's direct changes over here :) Glad to see some of my fave champs here.. what do you think of the new Lux changes? Too early to tell?
I think that Lux is slowly becoming more meta. Even with Lucent Singularity being harder to hit, it is still a side buff due to the fact it can be semi spammed at 8 seconds at Max rank. It also helps that the rest of her kit was buffed and that AP item's such as Twin Shadows and Mejai's Soulstealer have also indirectly buffed her!
I swear Riot is trying to make Lux support a thing.
This brings me to another point, how can you say tank supports aren't strong right now? Alistar and Braum have been immovable objects ever since preseason. They're literally untouchable in lane (Braum not that much in the first few levels, if anything) and Alistar is capable of oneshotting you at level 3. Also, where's Rakan? He's made a comeback last patch, bringing back Xayah Rakan lanes. Morgana is also quite commonly picked. Soraka with E max + Grail rush is also a thing now.
Where are Varus, Ezreal, Jhin, Tristana? MF is by no means strong all of a sudden, nor is she popular. Jinx is fine, though she's pretty mathcup-dependent like Trist.
I strongly disagree. Janna's can play aggressive of course by spaming W in lane, but they can also play super passive and a deny playstyle by disengaging/peeling with
Her trading is also very good due to
Regarding Tank Supports...
The nerfs to
Also since AP items have been buffed in recent patches, this indirectly makes Ranged supports stronger. That doesn't even include the direct buff ranged supports have been getting.
Regarding
Regarding ADCs....
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Janna can play aggro but she shouldn't easily win lane into those assuming they're players of equal skill level. Someone who lets Janna W him on cooldown without punishing her at all can't play bot lane period. That's not to say she's not strong, but you largely overestimate her laning phase.
E max Soraka doesn't take W until level 4 or even 8 (she goes EQEW), she doesn't play like classic Soraka therefore making grievous wounds debuffs irrelevant. If you saw it played, you'd know.
Yes, the game is bot lane oriented right now, but that's because of hard scaling AD carries. MF's laning phase is nowhere nearly as strong as you make it out to be. Mediocre range + telegraphed trading patterns, doesn't do well into the S tier AD carries. Merely looking at the statistics in high elo games is enough to prove a point here.
Varus is consistently good throughout the game, one of the best laning phases AND scales really well into the game, especially with the AP build. He barely has any weak sides lol.
Trist extremely vulnerable to ganks??? She's literally the least vulnerable to ganks among all AD carries except Ezreal. She scales ridiculously hard and her lower range won't matter in all ins, which is her strongest side early on and also something she should be forcing.
I still think
I have not seen anyone do this
I strong disagree. Hard scaling AD carries are not winning games at all. This goes back to my early game meta point. The average game time at the moment is around 27 minutes, this is not even close to the late game meta that our typical hard scaling champions such as
On Janna: she's also strong because she can actually defend against an Alistar/Rakan all in. I'm not trying to argue whether she's strong or not, it's just that you're overestimating what she can do in lane judging by what I assume is your own personal experience.
Varus doesn't have the best laning phase, no, but it's one of the better ones. He's one of the few AD carries that can handle Caitlyn in lane. Assuming you've seen what AP Varus can do, you shouldn't even consider placing him anywhere below S tier.
Vayne isn't played because of her weak laning phase. Kog'maw has been seeing more play, though, and he's a different case anyway because his build allows for a better mid game. Guinsoo rush is an early power spike compared to BF + RFC or Shiv.
So about MF, I really really don't see how you can consider her a top pick now. Her damage falls off really hard compared to all the commonly picked AD carries (which she doesn't even beat in lane contrary to what you think), she's even worse when she's behind. Also, you don't need the game to drag on for hypercarries to take over. MF with 3 items will never be able to match a crit AD carry with IE Shiv RFC. She isn't even played right now, I'm really curious what are you basing your assumptions on. Like you're pulling data here and there for win/ban rate but you should also look at her pick rate in an actually respectable elo.
Tristana isn't picked for poke, she's just a hypercarry, she becomes unstoppable once she gets going. We don't need to talk about how utterly ******ed RFC is, do we? 2-3 items is all she needs. Ezreal isn't primarily picked for poke, either, he's just a safe, reliable pick with steady scaling, he doesn't have losing matchups which certainly helps.
For the sake of us not writing each other a short essay in each response I ask you one thing: do you agree or disagree that this is a early game meta?
But whatever i'm just glad you voiced your opinion :)
Also, for the record, they mostly play Soraka like that in Masters/Challenger, I never said it's fotm. The fact that it never caught on in the lower tiers doesn't invalidate its strength.
This blog is also meant to appeal to the general league player base, meaning people around silver-plat elo. Win rates and ban rates do not give a full picture sure, but it hints at something deeper about the champion (
Also despite what the league sub reddit may tell you, anything past bronze is a relevant elo and anything past gold is a respectable elo . Most of the player base is silver to low gold. Once you get past gold the player base drops drastically to less than 5% of the player base. I do not know about you, but being statistically better than 95% of your peers is rather damn respectable in my opinion.
And i'm not sure why you are so obsessed with
Yeah, sure, but let's be real here, lower tiers are incredibly slow to catch on the meta, typically lagging a few patches behind. The knowledge and understanding of the game there is limited, champion picks don't matter nearly as much, any pick would work there. That's not to say they're good picks, however, but you can make them work. Hell, you can get pretty 'high' (relative to most of the playerbase) without knowing jack**** about the game. What I'm trying to say here is, what's 'good' (or what works, rather) in those tiers doesn't matter, it's not in any way authoritative. Therefore, in my opinion, data should be gathered exclusively from high elo, and I'm sure many would agree.
Lastly, I'm not obsessed with the Soraka thing in any way, all I did was try to point out what's also good now, is that not what your blog is about?
And I meant to harm in that
And facerush supports like
I'm not saying that facerush supports are bad, but if you do not win the all in you will suffer greater in lane when matched again sustain supports such as
With the
For tank supports, it's about how hard they can zone. An AD carry like Sivir, for example, can never get close to the wave against an Alistar or he'll all in her. The only time he's weak is the first 2 levels, at level 3 he gains massive kill potential at any point his WQ is up. Leona isn't particularly strong, though, she's basically a weaker Alistar, but she can be good into Xayah Rakan lanes.
On the subject of Ignite: it's actually saddening that people still default to Exhaust on supports.
I think that
I swear Riot is trying to make Lux support a thing.