Reign of Gaming

Quote from B3hr7 »

Between getting Trinity and F-Fist, get Trinity always. Your Q already does what F-Fist's passive includes, and Trinity scales much better into late game. Especially in a meta where ArPen has gotten very strong.

If Nashors and Wits End were released in their current PBE status, I would definitely consider picking up Wits End against a heavy AP comp. Nashor's, if you build him AP, I could definitely see this being a strong choice.

Trinity is really only good on Skarner in 3s.  The only thing Trinity Force does for Skarner is just make you better at 1v1ing people. On Summoner's Rift where Skarner's ability to initiate and peel for teams is too valuable to ignore, Trinity is mostly pointless, and buying it is basically spending nearly 4k on an item that still leaves you really squishy.

The best offensive items on Skarner are ones that not only give him damage, but also amplify his survivability.  Hence why I recommend Gunblade, Wits End, and Botrk. Gunblade and Botrk are furthermore usually better than Trinity for guaranteeing Skarner can land a successful ultimate. IG is better than Trinity on Skarner, but situational and competes with Frozen Heart.

Nashor's is almost good on Skarner except for the fact he's melee and the item provides almost no survivability stats, making it hard to negotiate an item slot for.

I don't like them changing Sona.  Personally me, I firmly believe the game is better while she remains one of the strongest picks.  She brings a lot of options for her team, and she is fundamentally balanced by being outplayable due to how strict her positioning has to be during the laning phase.

All Riot has to do honestly is just buff the other supports.  Sona is very well designed, and it's really not an excuse to nerf her as opposed to simply just getting better at designing and balancing other champions. The only nerf I really agree with is the passive resistance bonuses on W, because to be frank, they are actually very stupid lategame when you consider it's basically a second Aegis aura.  Insane amounts of free gold for a 5 man team to be frank.

But in the end the changes they make don't really matter. Sona's design is just so good that it would take pretty outrageously drastic nerfs to take her out of the game. Or actually Riot could potentially fuck it up by making Alistar good, which I assume they won't when they have realized he's a toxic champion that doesn't deserve to be good.

If you want offensive items on Skarner, Wits End, Gunblade, and BotrK are overall the best offensive items to purchase on him depending on the situation. Wits End is good for dueling mages.  Gunblade is an all purpose offensive item that overall gives you a lot of extra survivability in many situations due to the high amounts of combined lifesteal and spellvamp. Botrk is well, Botrk and counters health stacking as well as gives you a lot of attack speed.  IGB is okay as well, though Frozen Heart is usually more useful in teamfights.

You already have me added.  You can add me on Skype as well (same username).  Before duoing in ranked though, I would suggest being able to get in a few more normal games to figure out playstyle quirks.

You don't need any durability on AP Janna.  If you are getting caught and killed, you are doing it wrong.  Worst case scenario, Zhonyas is a fair item on her.

Don't get RoA or Seraphs.  Rylais and Abyssal are equally pointless on her.  Maybe if they have a Veigar get Bveil, but honestly AP Janna never has to get remotely close to an enemy team.

Diana is like, one of the top 5 most easily ganked champions in the game along with Mordekaiser, Darius, Soraka, you get the idea.

That's why playing her top lane is generally speaking not a very good idea.  While she is decent 1v1ing, it's very easy to pressure her when she basically has no way to disengage from a fight.  Champions that are traditionally mediocre at ganking early like Udyr and Skarner can straight up run to Diana and get her killed very easily earlygame if she does not ward extremely far out during the laning phase.

Quote from n4zArh »

On W lvl1: used to be 11->3, now it is 12->6.

On W lvl5: used to be 35->15, now it is 20->10.

So, new buffed on early is +1 [compared to old one], persistent (without buff) is +3. It's very little if we notice that lategame W is -15 with buffed and -5 unbuffed. While +1/+3 is hard to notice (unless u take no armor runes, but u will die really fast then even with that buff), -15 is really painful. W changes are straight nerf.

This changes almost nothing ultimately, given the standard rune setup for Sona is straight durability anyway.  And no, Sona is actually very difficult to kill in lane.  If you have a problem, I suggest learning how to position better.

Quote from aTomic »

Wowwww, that there's some harsh Sona nerfs. Base armour and HP are nice, but that is a huge chunk of her W to take away. And for what? So that she can be slightly tougher (but still squishy as hell) at level 2?

Mathematically, Sona's W is stronger earlygame.  It's really only a nerf lategame.

Quote from ChaosBloodterfly »

The counterplay is positioning and re-positioning mid-flight. And it's an ultimate. Those usually have less counterplay (usually still some), because they're the god damn ults.  Lissandra has a point and click stun with almost zero delay. Karthus has a global nuke. Veigar does WTFBBQ amounts of damage.

Lissandra has very short range and telegraphed mobility.  Karthus's ultimate is strictly just damage on a long cooldown and barely requires counterplay when it's overall an extremely small contribution from what Karthus actually does in teamfights.  Veigar is ruined by both BVeil and QSS and Cleanse by design and actually has trouble killing anyone while is stun is on cooldown.

Quote from Gilgamarsh »

I've never had any issue with Nautilus's ult, design wise. It may be unavoidable, but it has counterplay - it's slow enough that you can get to a safer position/avoid knocking up your teammates, which minimizes or even completely negates its impact. Even if you land a perfect ult, It doesn't have the raw power of other tank ultimates like Malphite, Amumu, or Sejuani. Their ults are technically avoidable but it hardly ever happens.

Nautilus has a high win rate and probably needs minor adjustments, but I don't think he's anywhere close to being a toxic champion.

Malphite is actually very stupid by design unless you have Nyjacky's insane reaction time, but outside of Flashing to avoid his ultimate, the real stupidity from Malphite is not only is his ultimate a very good initiation by itself, but it leads into the rest of his kit, which basically neuters an enemy AD carry more or less completely.  Both Amumu and Sej can be countered/mitigated by standard forms of CC reduction and removal on the otherhand.  I'm not sure what your comparison is supposed to mean. But Malphite would be more comparable to Nautilus than the others in terms of having a kit that lacks real counterplay.

Quote from dokora »

Well, you can dodge Naut's ult with Zhonya as well, this argument is invalid. Nautilus ult hardly does any damage late game, if that's your point. If you're arguing about the stun duration, well, you still have considerable time to run away from danger while the ult moves, if your positioning is half decent, the enemy won't be able to follow up on you. Did I mention that by the time AD carry can afford to buy QSS, Zed can basically kill him with  shurikens and BotRK active only? What about the fact that even tanks explode to Zed burst as soon as he gets BotRK/LW?

Seriously, what is up with people these days. Anything slightly punishing or requiring counterplay is branded is toxic. It's getting pretty ridiculous.

Nope, Zed actually can't reliably instakill a carry that has QSS.  QSS will both remove the ult and Botrk slow, which allows the carry to use an escape for superior positioning to turn on him.  A very large percentage of Zed's burst is definitely tied to his ultimate, and I can safely say from experience that buying QSS against Zed has saved me several times in skirmishes against him.

Cool, you can Zhonyas Nautilus ult, but that's not an item that is really applicable to all champions unlike QSS, which has nearly universal practicality on most champions besides supports. So if Naut is beelining AD carries with his ultimate, they basically don't have any options to really avoid getting dove unless it's Sivir.

Your comparison of Zed to Nautilus really isn't applicable.  Against Zed, almost all champions fundamentally will have an option through itemization (and summoners) to react to him when he uses his ultimate that can hugely reduce his effectiveness.  Nautilus really doesn't allow this type of counterplay by design. Even if you use summoners, assuming the Nautilus isn't an idiot who will ult you while you have a Banshees, his ultimate basically WILL catch you and at the very least zone a carry very hard if not get them set up to be easily killed if Nautilus has a decent team.

Note that I've never argued that Nautilus as a whole is overpowered.  But I do believe he is poorly designed and shouldn't be competitive.